


Flatmates

by intoapuddle



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, BDSM, Bondage, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Exhibitionism, Fuckboy!Phil, M/M, Mild Degradation, Roommates, Undefined Relationship, flatmates with benefits, idiot prose, mad bantz, threesome in part 3 lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:48:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22178821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intoapuddle/pseuds/intoapuddle
Summary: oh my god they were flatmates  /  the fuckboy!phil au we all deserve
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 81
Kudos: 529





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jestbee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/gifts).



He’s wearing black pants.

He’s wearing black fucking pants.

He’s got nothing else on and he is walking around the shared spaces of the flat like it’s no big deal. 

Dan doesn’t have much ground to stand on in terms of flatmate etiquette. He’s cracked kitchen tiles before. Plural. He’s broken a playstation controller. He’s had one too many and had to be nursed back to health while Phil was supposed to be cramming for an exam.

And yeah, he was almost caught wanking once or twice. Dan refuses to believe that Phil noticed just as much as Phil fails at holding back a laugh every time that Dan loudly announces that he is going to take a shower. Just in case.

When Dan got to uni he scored big. He was able to rent a room in an older student’s flat and never had to worry about living in dorms or being as inconvenienced as his not-friends have been. The fact that this older student was an obviously gay emo kid with beautiful blue eyes and a tight ass was absolutely not at all part of the reason why Dan decided to fuck his financial life up extra hard with student loans as his current accommodations are way above his price range.

Phil is wearing nothing but black pants and Dan is ogling him from the breakfast bar while he does the dishes and listens to music through his headphones. This is Dan’s perfect opportunity to chastise Phil for _something_ , finally. This is Dan’s opportunity to switch the narrative around and relieve himself of the confines of the “annoying younger brother” box Phil so sadistically put him in.

Dan eventually sits down on one of the stools. He’s crossing his legs to kill his hard-on but then, he could just as well go back to his room. He could look away.

Dan doesn’t look away.

He stays and looks and he doesn’t imagine fucking Phil’s perfect ass.

When Phil is done washing up, Dan stares down at his phone. He can sense Phil moving towards him and he pretends like he can’t feel every movement like a physical touch.

“Is it alright if Liam comes over later?” Phil asks.

Dan half glances at Phil’s very naked shoulder.

“Sure, whatever,” he says.

“Thanks.”

He pats Dan’s thigh before he leaves, absolutely oblivious to Dan’s state of near painful arousal. No narrative has been switched around.

Dan does not announce that he is going to shower this time. Not technically. But he might turn the water on before he closes the bathroom door. And he might pretty much slam the door shut.

There is no way Phil would catch him wanking either way. Dan shoots his load down the drain after only a few strokes.

-

Dan hates Liam.

Liam makes Phil laugh but it doesn’t sound at all like his laugh when Dan screams at a video game. This sounds put-on, like it’s meant to seduce, and it works. Dan pretends to study on his laptop at the breakfast bar just to sit and seethe as he watches Liam lean in closer and closer until his head disappears, probably to rest on top of Phil’s lap.

Not only does Phil act differently, but Liam loves to treat Dan like a little brother, too. They like to eye fuck each other and nag Dan about laundry like it’s part of some twisted fucking mating ritual.

Liam is not Phil’s boyfriend, though. Liam is straight.

Dan keeps thinking that Phil is petting Liam’s hair while they watch Scott Pilgrim until an indisputably _wet_ slurping sounds is heard from their general direction.

It’s followed by an exhale. Dan can’t breathe.

When he looks over, Phil’s shoulder is flexing back and forth. If Dan listens hard he can still hear those wet sounds below the noise of the telly. Phil is actually fucking Liam’s mouth while Dan is sitting only a couple feet away.

Dan gets up. It’s one thing to ogle your flatmate’s ass while he does the dishes, but it’s another to literally watch him get his dick sucked.

But as Dan stands up, the chair makes a disgusting whining noise against the tile. He freezes for a moment. When he looks over at the sofa, Phil has turned his head to look at him.

His fringe is sweaty at the ends. His skin is flushed to pink.

Despite this, Phil manages to put on the ‘big brother flatmate’ smile that Dan hates as he clears his throat.

“Where are you going?”

Dan sits back down, as if physically pushed back by Phil’s frankly impressive disregard for personal boundaries.

His cock is probably in Liam’s mouth right now. Maybe he’s using this moment to see how long it’ll take before Liam gags.

Dan’s dick is definitely not taking any interest in the idea of that.

“Thought I’d,” Dan stutters, “uh, give you guys some privacy.”

His voice goes into that posh sounding nasally tone that it does when he’s nervous.

Phil’s ‘big brother flatmate’ smile fades. Dan isn’t stupid. Phil is eyeing him like a beast about to hunt down a prey. His eyes linger on Dan’s exposed clavicle.

Dan decides to attribute this to the fact that Phil is currently receiving a blow job. Because that is a thing. That is happening.

“No need,” Phil says.

He stares straight into Dan’s eyes with a look that says _don’t you dare leave_.

“Okay.” Dan apparently only says dumb shit today. “Thanks.”

For the next few minutes, Dan stares blankly at the laptop screen whilst making more use of his peripheral vision than he has for his entire life. He is rewarded by finding Phil glancing back at him from time to time, looking sweatier and pinker every time.

The final time Phil glances back, the muscle in his shoulder stops flexing. His jaw drops and his eyebrows go up high on his forehead as his eyes close. He holds his breath for a moment before he chokes on an audible inhale, followed by a groan.

Dan is probably sweating harder than Phil is.

When Phil’s eyes open up and those tense muscles relax, Dan comes to the realisation that he hasn’t been using his peripheral vision to watch this for a while. He is looking right at Phil and Phil is looking right back. Dan is about to do something - anything - when Phil _smirks_ at him and he goes into another strange kind of horny paralysis.

The slurping noise is exchanged for a rattling breath. Liam is getting his breath back and Dan does not envy him. He really doesn’t. He really, really doesn’t. Dan is about to add a third ‘really’ to that statement when Liam sits back up and reveals his fucked-red mouth and his ruined hair and his watery eyes.

He isn’t looking at Dan. He is looking at Phil, with a strange sort of affection that Phil doesn’t return.

Dan stares back at the laptop screen. He really, really, _really_ doesn’t envy Liam.

Movement starts from the sofa but this time Dan doesn’t so much as glance. He listens as they get up and speak quietly. There is no way for Dan to make out the words, but he damn well tries to. He tries so hard that when something touches his back, it surprises him enough to jump in his chair.

It was Phil. A slow, deliberate slide of knuckles against Dan’s back as they pass him. Dan turns his head. He almost says something. But then Liam puts on his coat and pushes a beanie over his fucked up hair while Phil pretends like Dan doesn’t exist.

Liam leaves.

Dan shuts his laptop and gets up from the squeaky goddamn chair that put him in this situation. He thinks that Phil has gone to his room, but as he steps into the hallway on his way to his room he finds him standing beside his bedroom door with his back leaning against the wall, one foot up to support himself. The neck of his white t-shirt is lined with sweat that he sweated while getting his dick sucked on the sofa while staring at his flatmate.

Dan is in a different state of paralysis now. He pauses mid step as a billion thoughts enter his brain, asking him to say something. It turns out that that brain power does not reach his mouth, because all Dan can do is inhale a nervous breath as he takes the step.

Phil watches him with an assured look that is reminiscent of the ‘big brother flatmate’ look but not as innocent. Dan scrambles forward, eager to leave this mortifying moment.

He doesn’t miss Phil’s smirk right as he passes him.

-

Dan covers his mouth and nose as his breathing goes heavier. His hand is flying over his throbbing dick, while his hips roll to meet every movement. It felt out of his control, waking up in the middle of the night with a raging hard-on. At this point, Dan has started to learn that he doesn’t have to wank every time he gets hard but this type of arousal _hurt_ in a way that even the strongest person would be unable to ignore.

He doesn’t think of Phil’s tight ass in those black pants. He doesn’t think of the slurping noises as Liam sucked his cock. He doesn’t think about what Phil’s face looked like when he came in Liam’s mouth.

Dan is whining now. That is why he is pushing his hand over his mouth. When it’s this urgent, there is no way for him not to make noise. He can only muffle those sounds with a hand or a pillow.

Dan’s arm is tiring and his hips are coming to a slow. He squeezes the tip of his dick and twists his wrist under the duvet, in that way that is absolutely delicious when he is close to coming and his heart is hammering against his chest.

It is about to happen. Dan is so, so close. 

He doesn’t imagine pulling Phil’s pants down and sinking his cock inside him. He doesn’t imagine Phil’s milky white skin being pulled taut around him to accommodate his size. He doesn’t imagine the flushed pink of Phil’s hole, circling Dan’s cock.

“Dan?”

Dan freezes. A stupid, humiliating whine escapes him.

He waits, hoping that he imagined it.

There is a knock.

“Dan? Hello?”

Dan’s legs are shaking. His face is burning. Sweat is dripping from his hairline into his eyebrows.

“Fuck off, Phil,” he shouts weakly.

Tomorrow, Dan is going to pretend like he didn’t moan loud enough for Phil to wake up and come check on him. But right now, the frustration and embarrassment is great enough for him to not beat around the bush.

“Are you okay?”

Phil actually sounds genuinely concerned. Dan doesn’t know how to respond to genuine concern. Not when he is hard as a rock. Not when his muscles are still tight, expecting the relief of an orgasm.

“I’m fine!”

Dan doesn’t know why he is shouting. He can hear Phil perfectly well, speaking in a regular tone of voice on the other side of the door.

There is no response. It is so quiet, Dan almost thinks he imagined this happening. He strokes the base of his cock with an idle hand, waiting for the moment he can get this orgasm out of his system and go back to sleep, hopefully forgetting this ever happened.

That doesn’t happen. Because Phil opens the door.

He is wearing glasses. His fringe almost covers his eyes. He is wearing those tight black pants and a tight black t-shirt and Dan wants to kill him.

The duvet is pulled up into a tent, held up by Dan’s still throbbing cock.

Dan pushes his erection down between his thighs so quickly it hurts. He sits up, pulls the duvet up all the way to cover his chest, and stares.

“Go away!!”

The urgency of the moment fades when Phil breathes out an amused breath through his nose and rolls his eyes.

“Relax,” he says. “It’s not like I didn’t know what you were doing.”

Dan really wants to kill him.

“Why the fuck would you come knocking on my door, then?” he growls.

Dan doesn’t normally talk back to Phil like this, but these aren’t exactly normal circumstances. And yet Phil stares straight at those not-normal circumstances and grins.

Which means that he is staring between Dan’s legs where Dan is still pushing his unwavering erection down underneath the duvet. He can’t believe his dick hasn’t shriveled up inside of itself in mortification, never to see the light of day ever again. Rather, this whole scenario is having the opposite effect. Phil is absolutely unfazed by everything and the patronising look in his eye goes straight to Dan’s dumbass cock.

Instead of answering, Phil takes a step forward. Dan stares at him. Phil raises an eyebrow in the middle of his next step, glancing at the bed. When he looks back into Dan’s eyes, Dan gives the tightest nod of affirmation. Phil is suggesting the weirdest thing and Dan is allowing it. 

Phil sits down on the single bed, facing Dan. Dan’s side is pushed so hard against the wall he may as well morph inside it. Part of him wants to.

Another breath is exhaled through Phil’s nose. This one is not amused. This one is so clear in its meaning that it may as well have been a touch.

Then Phil puts his hand on Dan’s knee. He circles his thumb into the crevice and gives Dan a slow up-and-down.

He raises an eyebrow again, asking. Dan blinks back, affirming.

“Touch yourself for me,” Phil says.

Dan’s heart is beating so hard he can feel the pulse in his ears. Apparently, that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, because Dan wraps his hand around his cock and begins to stroke it again. The duvet obscures Phil’s vision enough for him to only be able to see the subtle flex of Dan’s arm, the slight movement of the sheets, as an indication that he is following his command. Dan breathes.

“Good,” Phil says, sliding his hand up Dan’s thigh, stopping at the middle.

Dan looks down at that hand. He keeps stroking himself in a not-slow but not-quick pace. Phil’s hand burns through the duvet.

“Feels good, yeah?” Phil asks.

Dan swallows. He would answer, but right now he can’t speak. He doesn’t want to break the fever-dream-like feeling of this.

“So quiet,” Phil tuts. He drums his fingers on Dan’s thigh. “A moment ago you were practically sobbing.”

Dan inhales sharply. He stills his hand.

Phil smirks.

He doesn’t have to say anything for Dan to know that he wants him to keep going. So Dan keeps going. He looks back down at the hand on his thigh and wanks underneath the duvet while his university flatmate watches.

That is a thing. That is happening.

“Look at me,” Phil says.

His voice has changed. It sounds gruffer, not as casual and unaffected. It does something to Dan. It gives him enough confidence to follow Phil’s suggestion, and the eyes he meets are downright _hungry_ for him.

“There we go,” Phil breathes. “A bit faster now.”

Dan’s hand speeds up. He isn’t pushing down, trying to keep out of view anymore. The fabric is tenting over his erection again and there is no question of what he is doing with his hand.

A soft moan escapes Dan. He fucks into his fist. The embarrassment rolls through him again, so awful and arousing that Dan has to close his eyes and tilt his head back.

“Dan,” Phil beckons him. “I said look at me.”

Dan immediately complies.

“That’s it,” Phil says. “Nice and obedient.”

Dan releases yet another soft, stupid moan. His hand goes quicker. Precum rolls down over his knuckles.

Dan doesn’t want to break the illusion that this isn’t really happening. He doesn’t want to participate enough to say something, but he is getting close again and he isn’t sure if that’s allowed.

He fucking loves that he isn’t sure of that.

That is what prompts him to finally speak.

“Can I come?”

Phil squeezes Dan’s thigh. Dan stills his hand yet again, as the squeeze makes its way through his stupid horny thigh all the way to his stupid horny dick.

“Do you want to come? Phil asks.

Dan huffs some kind of a laugh. Phil smiles back. This one is less of a smirk. This one is joining Dan on the other end of this, the one that knows how fucking surreal this is. Dan feels slightly comforted by having Phil on that side with him, even if it’s for a second. It takes away the part of the embarrassment that isn’t hot.

“Yeah,” Dan admits. “I want to come.”

Phil runs his hand further up Dan’s thigh. Dan almost thinks that he is going to push the duvet off and do it for him, but then it slides back all the way down to his knee. Dan still isn’t moving his hand. He can’t. Not if he isn’t allowed to come.

“Hm,” Phil muses.

Dan groans again. He strokes himself, slowly, slowly. He needs to give himself some relief.

“Yeah,” Phil says then. “You can come.”

Dan’s hand speeds up immediately. Phil squeezes his thigh again, which Dan somehow knows to mean that he should slow down.

“If you ask nicely,” Phil says.

Dan blinks. He can’t help but laugh. He is so turned on it’s ridiculous. Ridiculous and amazing.

Phil grins.

“Well?” he prompts.

There is some kind of air of ‘big brother flatmate’ in Phil’s tone. Dan never knew that that could be such a turn-on.

“Please,” Dan gets out, face burning as he blushes. “Can- Can I come, please?”

“Good boy,” Phil says. “Yes. Come for me.”

Dan speeds up his strokes. When his eyes are about to close, and the orgasm is just about to hit, Phil tuts again. Dan knows that it means he should keep his eyes open. He knows that it means that he should keep looking at Phil’s face.

“Fuck,” Dan grits out between his clenched teeth, struggling to keep his eyes open as the feeling overtakes him.

“Yeah,” Phil whispers. “There we go.”

It is that dumb fucking tone of his voice and the unwavering interest in the depth of Phil’s expression that causes Dan to fuck into his fist like a horny slut. His hand gets soaked with come as he strokes himself through what must be the best orgasm he’s ever had.

Once it’s over, Phil pats Dan’s knee and gets up. If Phil is hard, Dan can’t tell. The room is too dark.

Before he leaves, Phil reaches down to touch Dan’s sweaty face and pets his cheek. His hand is so cold. It is such a relief that Dan noses his way to nuzzle into it. For some reason, Phil allows that.

“What do we say?” Phil asks.

Dan brushes his lips over the palm of Phil’s hand and breathes “thank you.”

-

When Dan woke up the morning after, Phil was gone. There was no note, but then, they never leave each other notes. They’re not boyfriends. They’re hardly even friends. Still, when Dan woke up and couldn’t find Phil, he expected a note.

Whatever Phil has to say the next time they see each other, Dan wants to put it up as much as possible. He hasn’t been a good flatmate. He breaks things, he is too loud when he masturbates, he stays up all night, and now he has been in not one but two strange sexual encounters with the guy whose parents own the place. The best thing Dan can do now is to look up any available rooms in the dorms across campus, because Dan might do stupid things but at least he is smart enough to know that those stupid actions have consequences.

So Dan sets out to sit in the library after his shift at ASDA to look for a new place and draft an email to his dad that sounds less like “I pseudo-fucked my flatmate and I’m being kicked out” and more like “I have good, sensible reasons to move and I’m not a failure”.

Dan stretches his fingers and until they crack before he begins typing.

_Hey Dad._

_So I wanted to say that University is going great! I hope you and mum are well. Classes are a breeze and I’m a fucking liar what the hell am I even saying_

He starts again.

_Dad._

_I’m looking to move into the dorms because I think it’s better if I’m closer to my classmates even if living there caused me to have a breakdown the first year and this is not at all something I need to do because I didn’t fuck my flatmate but I also didn’t not fuck my flatmate. Anyway, it’s complicated, I’m sure you understand_

Dan isn’t in the right headspace to write this email today. Clearly.

He should study. Because when he was supposed to study last he ended up watching Liam suck Phil’s dick and that is apparently not the most productive working environment for him, personally.

So Dan ends up opening his browser and the PDF he was asked to read and before he knows it, it’s an hour later and he’s browsing Twitter. It’s getting late and the library is going to close soon. 

Dan picks up his phone, very sure that he is going to text Phil, and ends up agreeing to go to a party with all the not-friends he hates.

-

Dan is hungover.

His head is pounding, he has a mysterious stain on the crotch of his jeans, and he is still wearing his shoes when he wakes up the next morning. Thankfully, he doesn’t remember many of the details of last night. Having a couple shots or ten does that.

Dan figures it can’t have been that bad, because he’s in his own bed. There is a glass of water, a painkiller, and a full loaf of bread on the bedside table. He was in a good enough headspace to at least do that. Maybe not good enough to remember to take off his shoes, but still.

A glass of water, a painkiller, and half a loaf of bread later Dan changes into a pair of grey sweatpants and a Totoro t-shirt. He hasn’t looked in the mirror, but he can practically feel how gross his hair looks.

The bathroom door is locked when he gets there. Dan knocks.

He _knocks_.

He holds back a laugh. Okay. Maybe he’s still a bit drunk.

“What?” is heard from inside the bathroom.

Dan struggles harder not to laugh.

“I have to pee,” he says.

Dan hears a zipper and a toilet flushing, followed by water running from the tap.

Phil opens the door and jumps in surprise when he finds Dan standing there. Dan barks a laugh that makes his bladder hurt.

“You already knew I was here!” he wheezes.

“Because you knocked!” Phil argues. “Who knocks?”

“Your face…” Dan pushes his hands to his crotch to stop himself from pissing his pants.

Phil passes him with an odd look on his face. He looks down at Dan’s hands.

Dan remembers that the reason he went out to drink was because he didn’t want to be confronted about what a lousy flatmate he is. And now he’s a lousy flatmate that _knocks_ when the toilet is occupied.

“Are you alright?” Phil asks.

“I’m gonna piss myself,” Dan answers.

Phil practically pushes Dan inside the bathroom and closes the door behind him. Dan giggles all the way through peeing and showering until he walks out with a towel wrapped around his hips and finds Phil, standing by the breakfast bar pouring two cups of coffee.

“Got someone coming ‘round?” Dan asks.

Please not Liam, please not Liam, please not Liam, please not Li-

“Yeah,” Phil says, putting the coffee pot aside.

“Who?”

Phil pours milk into both cups.

“Dan,” he says. “My flatmate. I’m sure he’ll be here any time now.”

Dan giggles. Phil fights a smile.

The silence that follows is filled with an unprompted amount of tension. Phil glances at Dan’s bare chest, reminding Dan that he’s practically naked.

“I’ll just go put something on,” Dan says, backing away on unsteady feet.

Phil catches his eye. There’s that motherfucking smirk.

“You sure?” he asks.

“Fuck off,” Dan bites back.

Phil laughs and happily stirs an unhealthy amount of sugar into the coffees as Dan puts on his clothes and promises himself to never drink again.

-

After that, it’s a bit easier. Dan no longer thinks he’s getting kicked out. Phil still walks around in his pants sometimes and Liam still comes over, but there’s no pseudo-fucking to speak of.

That’s good. That’s normal enough. Dan can study and never leave his room and Phil can do whatever it is he does when he leaves. This is what sharing a flat at uni was supposed to be like. He’d have flatmate that’s a bit weird but harmless and that’s exactly what he’s getting now.

Dan is getting kind of bored with harmless.

It’s better like this. He doesn’t have to send his parents that excruciating email detailing his last fuck up. It’s not like Dan can’t get any if Phil doesn’t want him.

That’s probably it. Dan probably just needs to get laid.

He could. But his bedroom and his laptop are more interesting to him than any of his not-friends and their loser acquaintances or whatever awkward sex he’d have with them.

So, Dan needs to get laid, but he can’t be arsed to get laid. That’s normal enough. Dan decides to go with that.

-

Dan isn’t a go-getter. When he thinks he wants something, that’s exactly how he phrases it. He _thinks_ he wants it. How could he possibly know he wants something if he doesn’t turn it over in his head a million times first? How could he simply grab, when there’s so much that could go wrong if he decides to take the plunge?

The thought might come, once or ten times a day. It could be stuck in his head on repeat, because the Thing he is thinking about is in the other room. It’s not that he’s obsessed. Dan is perfectly capable of seeming disinterested.

It’s just that it’s hard to ignore when the same images pop up in his head every time he touches himself. He sees that tight ass in those black pants and he hears that gruff voice in that dark room and he feels that squeeze on his thigh, he hears that same question.

_”Do you want to come? Ask nicely.”_

More than that, it’s a certain feeling he had when it was happening that he can’t quite forget. It wasn’t just about being horny. He’s not in love with Phil or anything. He hardly knows the guy. But there was something else, all floaty and undefined and probably bullshit because Dan can’t put it down to certain terms. 

That doesn’t make it easier, when Dan thinks he wants something. When it comes to this, Dan doesn’t even know what it is that he thinks he wants.

Dan is in the shower. He’s squeezing his balls with one hand and playing with the head of his cock with the other. The warm water is heavenly. He’s got the flat to himself. There is no one in the other room to think of. Dan is definitely not thinking about those things. He doesn’t think of that final moment, when Phil touched his cheek. That part wasn’t even sexual. He has no reason to think about it when he’s having a shower wank just because he can.

There’s a knock on the bathroom door that pulls Dan’s focus all over the place.

“What?” he shouts.

Apparently, being surprised always means shouting.

“Are you done soon?” Phil shouts back.

Dan groans.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

Phil doesn’t answer at first.

“You need to stop wanking in the shower.”

Dan is still playing with his cockhead. He hadn’t even thought about stopping.

“I’m not!” Dan shouts.

His heart starts pounding. There’s that feeling, that undefined thing. It curls his toes and the arousal gets downright forceful. 

Dan isn’t a go-getter. He wouldn’t ask Phil for this feeling.

As it turns out, Phil is a go-getter.

“Don’t come,” he says.

It’s quieter than the other things he’s said, but it cuts through the sound of the water stream. It is so loud in Dan’s mind that Phil might as well have whispered it in his ear.

Dan doesn’t respond. He listens to Phil’s footsteps as he leaves. 

Dan stops touching himself.

When he exits the bathroom, Phil is gone.

-

Dan doesn’t see Phil again until the next day. It’s eight in the evening and Dan is done with work. His back is sore and his steps are heavy, walking up the stairs to the flat. He isn’t exactly in the mood to walk in on Liam and Phil making out in the hallway, but that’s what happens. He closes the door behind himself and stares at the back of Liam’s head. He is so caught up in sticking his tongue down Phil’s throat that he hasn’t even noticed that Dan came in.

Phil notices, though. Phil opens his sex-droopy eyes and grins at Dan like this is funny.

It’s been a long day. That’s what Dan decides to be the reason for the vehement anger boiling in his guts. It’s not about the fact that Phil is in his black pants, or the fact that Liam is currently groping his tight, perfect ass as if he owns it. It’s not about the thrilled look in Phil’s eyes as they lock with Dan’s. It’s not about the fact that it all turns him on.

Dan throws his bag on the floor next to the door. It creates a loud noise that finally prompts Liam to pull away from Phil and look back at Dan.

Liam sees something in Dan’s face. Dan doesn’t know what it is, but it makes him shrink. He smiles nervously and glances at Phil.

“Oops,” he says. “Didn’t mean to bother the boyfriend.”

Something in Phil’s eyes tells Dan that he is absolutely loving this. Dan clenches his teeth.

“I’m not his boyfriend,” he grits out. “It’s fine.”

He can hear the tone. He sounds absolutely furious.

For a second, the thrilled look in Phil’s eyes falters.

“I was gonna leave anyway,” Liam says.

He gets his jacket on and looks back at Phil. Dan wants to punch the stupid, longing expression off his face.

He doesn’t have to. Liam is out the door and Dan stands seething in the hallway. He hasn’t even taken off his shoes or his jacket. Phil remains stood by the entrance to the living room. He is absolutely gorgeous. His skin is still flushed. Whatever him and Liam were doing while Dan was gone must have been pretty fucking nice.

Dan kicks off his shoes and throws his jacket on the floor. 

He stomps his way to his bedroom, away from Phil; back to his laptop and his solitude and his normal-enough. Everything in the world is too out of the ordinary. He is a shit flatmate that stomps around angrily and barks at Phil’s fuck buddy for no reason. He’s like a fucking guard dog, but the house he’s protecting doesn’t belong to him.

He doesn’t want that house to belong to him. It’s not his home, not his backyard, not his fence. Regardless, he’s trapped behind it and all he can really do is bark at passers-by.

“Dan.”

The sound is not muffled. Phil is already here, before Dan even remembered to close the door behind himself. Dan turns around and meets the smug look on Phil’s face.

“Phil,” Dan says in a mocking tone.

Phil rolls his eyes with a smile. Dan didn’t move to Manchester to get a big brother. Dan is the one that’s supposed to be the big brother. Not Phil. Phil can fuck off.

Phil doesn’t fuck off. He jumps back-first onto Dan’s bed and crosses his arms behind his head. His body is fully stretched out along the mattress. All that gorgeous skin and the happy trail and the chest hair and the jut of his adam’s apple and his slender legs and the bulge in his tight fitting pants. Dan gawks at him.

“Bad day?” Phil asks.

Dan huffs.

“Fuck off.”

Phil smirks.

“Want me to make it better?”

Dan regards him with a distance. He isn’t about to fall into some humiliating trap. But right now, Phil is the picture of sex. He’s practically naked, stretched on top of Dan’s bed. Dan isn’t stupid enough not to realise that it’s an obvious offer.

Still, Dan wants to be sure.

“How?” he asks.

Phil grins.

“You’re cute when you’re pretending to be oblivious.”

“Can I have my bed back?” Dan asks.

Phil doesn’t move. Dan stares at him. Phil pats the small spot right next to his stomach.

“Come here.”

It’s not a question. Dan sits down. He feels Phil move until he’s sitting up behind him, his chest to Dan’s back, and runs his hand through Dan’s hair. Softly, softly, he touches the back of his head, running his palm over the short hair there.

Dan’s eyes close. He moans. He pushes back into the touch. He has no fucking control over himself, apparently. All he knows is that the anger is fading. All he knows is that this feels nice. He won’t ask questions. He won’t ask for anything. Dan’s not a go-getter.

But Phil is. Phil’s lips ghost over the shell of Dan’s ear and make their way across Dan’s cheek. Dan only has to follow the movement of Phil’s hand on the back of his head for Phil to reach his mouth. Dan parts his lips and Phil’s tongue skates the tip of his tongue. Dan exhales, warm and horny.

“This is better, yeah?” Phil asks.

Dan grumbles something, unintelligible even to himself.

“What’s wrong?” Phil’s voice is sickeningly sweet. “Tell me about your day.”

He pulls away. Dan opens his eyes to those smug eyes and that ‘big brother flatmate’ smile and he wants to kiss him harder. He wants to push him down.

But most of all, he wants Phil to tell him what to do. He wants him to stroke his dick until he can’t take it anymore, and then he wants him to stroke his dick some more. He wants him to make him hold out until he thinks he’s allowed to come.

“You don’t give a shit about my day,” Dan says.

Phil shrugs. He won’t even pretend, huh?

“What do _you_ give a shit about, Dan?” he asks.

Dan’s eyes narrow. Phil plays with the hair at the nape of his neck. It’s soothing. It makes Dan angry.

“I give a shit about your stupid fucking black pants,” Dan growls. “I give a shit about you throat fucking Liam in front of me. I give a fuck about you coming into my room at night to tell me when to come. I give a fuck about-”

Phil’s hand comes to cover his mouth. Dan is too surprised to keep talking.

“Poor baby,” Phil says. “Are you jealous?”

He releases Dan’s mouth from his hold.

Jealous? Fucking _jealous_? What the fuck would he be jealous about?

“No,” Dan growls.

Phil tilts his head to the side. He eyes Dan’s lips.

“Hm,” he says. “Did you want to fuck me, then?”

Dan chokes on his breath. “What?”

Phil chuckles.

“You’re too much, Dan.”

He moves to sit with his feet on the ground. Next to Dan, not touching any part of him.

“Too much what?” Dan asks.

“I know what it’s like to be twenty,” Phil says. “There’s so much going on, yeah? And here’s this guy that keeps playing games with you.”

Dan frowns. Phil smirks.

“But you make it so fun,” he says. “You’re constantly horny and it’s the funniest thing in the world.”

“I’m not,” Dan argues. “I’m not horny all the time. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I don’t have to. Your fucking boner tells the tale.”

“My-”

“It’s not about me,” Phil shrugs. “You’re twenty.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m some child.”

“Shh.”

Dan shuts his mouth. Phil’s hand finds its way to Dan’s thigh. He’s so hard it hurts.

“Relax,” Phil says. “I’ll let you fuck me. You’re just so cute when you’re angry.”

“What makes you think I even want to?” Dan tries.

Phil rolls his eyes. His hand skates up Dan’s thigh and between his legs. Dan swears his cock is actually trying to push itself into Phil’s hand. He’s not in control of it. Dan’s cock is so fucking stupid and it has absolutely no dignity.

“Okay,” Dan says, because apparently his mouth is stupid and it has absolutely no dignity either.

Phil smirks. “Kiss me.”

Dan launches forward and Phil meets him in the middle of that aggression. They tumble onto the bed. Phil gets on top, pushing Dan’s shirt off and pulling at his jeans. Dan pushes his hips up and Phil pulls his jeans off along with his underwear. Dan is self conscious as all hell but he’s too horny to care about the pudge of his stomach or the size of his dick or his lack of body hair. Phil doesn’t seem to mind anything, anyway. He glues himself on top of Dan. He takes Dan’s hands and puts them on his own ass. He pushes back into them until Dan squeezes those tight cheeks.

“Fuck,” Phil moans. “There we go. There we go.”

Dan whines pathetically. He grabs at the waistband of Phil’s pants and Phil kisses him.

“Adorable,” he breathes. “You wanna fuck me, don’t you?”

Dan laughs. Phil still waits for the answer.

“Yeah,” Dan says.

Phil doesn’t make another move. Dan remembers. He has to ask nicely.

“Yes, please,” he forces himself to say.

“You’re so polite,” Phil grins.

Dan is stupid-horny.

“Thank you,” is what his dumbass mouth comes up with.

Phil takes hold of Dan’s wrists and makes him slide his hands inside his underwear. Dan grabs his asscheeks, hard. He feels absolutely primal about this. There is only one thought in his head and that is to stick his dick anywhere Phil lets him.

That, and maybe the idea that Phil is going to patronise him some more. But that’s not really a thing. Dan could patronise Phil if he wanted to. It’s whatever.

It becomes slower. Phil slides his hands on top of Dan’s and urges him to take the pants off. Dan just goes with it. Eventually, Phil is stark naked on top of him and suddenly Dan remembers that Phil doesn’t just have an ass but a dick, too.

Dan isn’t the type of person to describe a cock as looking delicious, but Phil’s cock looks delicious.

It’s wet and flushed red at the tip. He isn’t fully hard but when Dan wraps his hand around it and pulls down the foreskin, he marvels at that gorgeous wet cockhead staring straight up at him. He releases a deep breath as Phil sits comfortably on his lap, letting Dan play with his dick for a bit.

“Having fun?”

Phil’s voice is just a bit strangled. Dan sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and looks up at him. As soon as he does, Phil groans and looks away.

“What?” Dan asks.

Phil looks down at him again.

“You know fucking what,” he says.

Dan frowns. “No.”

Phil bends on top of him and pushes his lips to Dan’s. His cock slides up his stomach and Dan bucks up against him until they align next to each other. Phil is getting more aggressive in the way he grabs at Dan now. He bites at his bottom lip and pulls at his hair. It’s gentle enough not to hurt, but it’s almost more about the idea than the actual act. Dan kind of wants Phil to grab him and slap him and fuck him right now. That’s not a desire Dan often allows himself to think about.

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Phil breathes against his mouth.

Dan moans. It almost sounds like a reaction to what Phil says, and it makes Phil laugh. That, if anything, is what makes Dan’s dick get harder.

“I know you’re about to bust right now,” Phil says. “I’m not gonna make you hold out for too long.”

“I can--”

“No,” Phil says, smiling. He pats Dan’s cheek in the most condescending way possible. “You can’t. And that’s okay.”

Dan finds himself actually pouting.

“What makes you think I can’t?”

“Have you had a guy on you like this before?” Phil asks.

He rolls his hips against him for emphasis. Dan spreads his legs further and squeezes his eyes shut, feeling all the things he hasn’t allowed himself to feel.

“No,” he admits.

He’s had sex with guys. He’s fucked and been fucked. This is completely different, though. Those times were rushed and awkward and, well, there’s a reason Dan doesn’t go looking for it unless it’s absolutely necessary.

He doesn’t like this feeling. Phil’s eyes turn from that condescending thing into something affectionate. But it’s not affectionate like _that_. Rather, Dan thinks Phil is seeing Dan as a mirror right now. As if he is looking at a younger, more inexperienced version of himself. Dan can’t imagine Phil as anything but the sexy tease he is today, but he’s sure Phil must’ve felt nervous at some point in his life.

Dan’s nervous. Dan’s nervous as all hell and he’s got this gorgeous guy looking at him like he matters and he’s sliding his wet hard cock against his own. One false move, and Dan’s gonna come. Phil wasn’t wrong. Dan just doesn’t want to admit to it.

“God, you’re just…”

Phil loses his words into another kiss. Dan wants more, more, more of whatever this is. The feeling is undefined and probably bullshit but he just _wants_.

Phil pulls away again. He sits back onto his shins. Dan can hardly look at the way his own legs are spread for him. This room is far too bright and Phil can see far too much of him, in every sense of the phrase.

“Put your hands above your head.”

Dan doesn’t move. Phil raises an eyebrow.

“No hands and feet inside the vehicle?” Dan asks.

He’s a dumbass who can’t keep the joke from spilling from his mouth, even when he knows it’s inappropriate. Right now he wants to be sexy, but all he’s doing is furthering Phil’s view of him as a younger brother. 

Phil does smile. He lets out a breath of a laugh, but he doesn’t linger on it. Dan wants to laugh so hard it hurts because this is fucking terrifying and hot and he’s fucking this up, isn’t he?

Phil takes a hold of Dan’s wrists and pushes them up above his head. Dan looks up at him. He looks at his amazing body and the confidence with which he moves Dan to lie just like he wants him to. Phil crosses Dan’s wrists above his head and sits back, satisfied.

“Think you can keep them there?” Phil asks.

“Yeah,” Dan says, in that childish challenging tone.

Phil wraps his hand around Dan’s cock. Dan takes a sharp breath.

“Think you can take it if I blow you?” Phil asks.

Dan nods tightly. He wants. He wants so bad.

Phil cradles Dan’s balls in his hand. It feels so good. Dan has to close his eyes.

It is unspoken that Dan can absolutely not take this. Phil knows it. Dan knows that Phil knows it. But, for once, Phil doesn’t question it. Instead, he bends down and takes him in his mouth and accepts the way Dan accidentally humps because, fuck.

Phil massages Dan’s balls and licks his cockhead and Dan shouldn’t be able to come from that but he probably will. He’s had blow jobs before, but he doesn’t think he’s ever had one by anyone quite as enthusiastic as Phil.

“Feel good, baby?”

Dan feels that swooping sensation of pushed back desires being released. No judgement. Dan can’t even tell if he likes it. The feeling is such a shock to his repressed state of mind that it scares him as much as it excites him.

“Yes,” Dan answers in spite of it. “God.”

“Too much?” Phil asks.

Dan looks down at him. Phil wraps his hand around Dan’s aching cock and slaps it against his bottom lip.

“Phil, oh my God,” Dan moans.

He manages not to come but it’s by the hair. He can feel Phil’s smile against his cockhead and that doesn’t help the situation.

“I want to come,” Dan says, reminded of last time’s conditions.

“Mhm,” Phil says.

“Can I come, please?” It sounds like begging at this point.

“You ask so nicely,” Phil says. “You’re such a good boy.”

Dan whines, thrusting against Phil’s lips. Phil keeps one hand on Dan’s hip to steady him.

“Do you want to be a good boy for me, Dan?”

Dan can either run away from this feeling, or.

Or he can just go for it. He likes it. He knows that he likes it. There’s no question about it.

“I wanna,” Dan nods, feverish with it. “Please, let me come.”

“Yeah.” Phil’s voice is so low. Dan chances a look down at him. “Come for me like a good boy.”

Quick, short strokes. Dan fucks into Phil’s fist and the moment Phil slaps the cockhead against his lips, Dan comes everywhere. It gets on Phil’s mouth and face and hand and chest. It’s like a goddamn sprinkler of come. It’s better than the orgasm Phil made him have the other night. Dan is so caught up in the feeling that he isn’t even embarrassed.

“Wow,” Phil says once Dan calms down.

Insecurity twists in Dan’s stomach.

Phil crawls on top of him and pushes him down with his weight. He grabs Dan’s face between his hands and kisses him. It seems like a deliberate move. For a moment, Dan felt like the good feelings were about to turn really dark really quickly, but now Phil is literally physically grounding him into this moment and it’s the most comforting thing Dan has ever experienced.

He has never felt so held. It’s stupid, but it’s true. His horny flatmate who fucks around all the time is the person that has made Dan feel more held than anyone else ever has.

“You’re so beautiful,” Phil whispers. “So gorgeous. So sexy.”

Dan gasps. Phil humps him steadily. His cock slides against Dan’s stomach.

“Wanna make you come more,” Phil continues. He’s practically babbling. “You drive me fucking insane, you know that? You keep acting like you don’t know what we’re doing here but you _know_.”

Phil rests his forehead against Dan’s. He takes a hold of Dan’s wrists and places his hands on his back. Dan starts to feel it, really feel it. He feels the shape of Phil. Of the broadness of his shoulders and how he gets narrower at the hips. He’s so big and strong, which almost makes Dan laugh to think about, but it feels good. He’s bigger than Dan, he’s stronger than Dan, and yet he treats him so gently.

“You know what’s happening but you’re too young and stupid to realise.”

“Hey,” Dan says.

He doesn’t even know what Phil means, which probably proves Phil’s point. One of Phil’s hands disappears in between them and he starts stroking his dick. Dan moves his hands down to Phil’s ass and squeezes hard, like Phil liked him to before. Phil moans. It’s loud. It’s goddamn pornographic. 

“Push a finger in,” Phil urges him.

Dan has probably never done that. He wants to. He finds the creased skin of Phil’s asshole and he pushes. Phil opens up for him easily. He clenches tight around Dan’s finger and, fuck, Dan wants to fuck that ass.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Phil moans.

Phil comes on Dan’s stomach. He pushes his ass against Dan’s finger until it goes further in. He is essentially fucking himself. Dan has never seen anyone so willing to be fucked before, so unashamed in that desire.

“Okay,” Phil says, regaining his breath. “You can pull it out now.”

Dan does. Phil lets out a big breath.

He leans down and kisses Dan on the mouth.

“Did you like that?” he asks.

Dan whines against his mouth. It’s like a laugh and like an annoyed sound at the same time. Phil is the one that’s too much, sometimes.

“Yes,” Dan says. “I loved it.”

Phil sits next to Dan. His eyes roam his body, and for the first time, Dan doesn’t mind being so put on display. Phil seems to be admiring his work almost. His eyes catch on the puddle of come in the dip of Dan’s stomach. Dan feels that stomach swoop when he looks at it, himself. It’s something he likes but isn’t supposed to like but now he is allowed to like it. If Dan were a crier he’d cry right now, probably.

Phil’s roaming eyes reach Dan’s and he seems to notice. Dan is about to make a joke. He is about to bite back and retaliate against whatever harsh thing is on the tip of Phil’s tongue.

Phil simply cradles Dan’s face with one hand. Dan nuzzles into his palm.

“What do we say?” Phil asks.

Dan kisses the inside of Phil’s wrist. He smirks up at Phil’s fawning expression.

“Thank you.”

-

They clean up. They order pizza. An hour after fucking, they’re in their pyjamas on the sofa arguing about what to watch. As if what they just did is something ordinary. Like it’s something that flatmates regularly do and that Dan won’t get kicked out over.

Dan’s tummy is warm. He’s laughing at the show with Phil. Phil sits in his end of the sofa and Dan sits in his own. Sometimes Phil strokes his foot along the underside of Dan’s. When he does, Dan pretends not to notice.

If he says anything about it, he’s going to make a stupid joke. If he pushes back, he’ll end up kicking and start play fighting. Dan can’t really do anything seriously, so right now, he does nothing at all. It’s not like this means anything, anyway. It’s just nice. Dan can allow it to be nice, for the duration of this meal and this film.

_You know what’s happening but you’re too young and stupid to realise._

Dan glances at Phil. Phil glances back.

“What?” Phil asks. He’s got a stupid, pizza-grease smile on his face.

“Nothing,” Dan sulks.

“Come on.”

Dan looks away.

“Was that a one time thing?”

When he looks back at Phil, Phil is rolling his eyes.

“You seriously need to relax,” he says.

“I was just wondering!” Dan defends himself. “It’s not, like, something flatmates are supposed to do, right?”

“Who cares?” Phil asks. He strokes his foot along Dan’s. “You’re hot. And yeah, I’m gonna wanna fuck you again.”

 _I’m gonna want you to_ , Dan thinks.

“Okay,” is what Dan says.

He shrugs. He pretends like Phil’s eyes don’t burn the side of his face as he stares blankly at the TV screen. He tells himself that he doesn’t notice Phil’s fond little laugh, or that it makes him feel held like he did before.

It’s all so dumb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Jane!!!
> 
> I love you, I hope your birthday is wonderful, and I hope you enjoyed this fic. You're such an amazing friend and knowing you has been a gift to me this whole year, in so many ways. You matter more than you realise and you deserve the world, honestly.
> 
> Thank you for being an awesome snail and for always being there for me. <3


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh my god they were flatmates... and Phil will let Dan fuck him, on one condition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter: Bondage, Dirty Talk & Restraints ^-^

Some days, Dan gets angry about his whole life.

It’s so fucking stupid. He knows that there’s a sad child inside of him and it makes him feel crazy. He doesn’t want that mopey kid, sitting heavy in his chest, asking him why things are the way that they are. It’s not like Dan can think of his own family in the same terms that a lot of other people can, anyway. It’s not like it even matters whether or not he spends time with them over Christmas. He’s an adult. Given the decision, he wouldn’t spend time with them anyway.

The only thing he’s really upset about is the lack of choice. Mum and Dad went on a spontaneous trip abroad to --- was it Greece? Spain? Whichever one it was, it wouldn’t give Dan any more of that choice. He’s being unfair, expecting something from them that he wouldn’t give them himself. If he was able to decide not to spend the holidays with them, that would take that choice from them and why is that fair, anyway? Why should Dan get to dump them if they aren’t allowed to dump him?

It’s the sad child, moping around and clawing at his chest, begging to get out that thinks that Dan is the one that should have the choice. Because he’s their kid. Parents shouldn’t just get to leave at every which impulse. And sure, that might have been true when Dan was younger. When he was dependent on them more than he is now, and even then they would spend days or even weeks away just because they wanted to. There is no reason for Dan to be upset about that now, though. There is no reason for something like this to bring up memories of the past. Dan is an adult, he isn’t spending the holidays at home, and whatever reason there is for that or whatever past Dan comes from gives him no right to feel sad for hours on end.

Instead, it turns into anger. It turns into a rage so visceral, Dan feels it in his bones. It’s not something that makes him feel strong. Those bones ache from anger. He is absolutely weak.

He doesn’t want to be alone. And at the same time, that’s all he wants. He gets the choice to hang out with his not-friends over the break several times and he declines every single offer presented to him. Maybe that’s his own way of getting back at his parents, or whatever the arm-chair therapist sitting on his shoulder today would call it. He gets the choice, and so he makes the decision he would’ve made if it was granted to him by them. He finally gets to say no, no, no, no, _no_. He’s the one that gets to act like everyone around him is an inconvenience to him now.

But in the end, all it gives him is that lonesome anger. Phil is spending his holidays back at home with his family, because he is a normal person and that’s what normal people do. Dan is entirely left to his own faulty devices.

Well, calling Phil ‘normal’ is pushing it. He definitely has something twisted about himself but contrary to Dan’s twistedness, Phil’s is intoxicating. It’s dark and sexy. There is no moping child clawing at Phil’s chest, that’s for sure.

Dan hasn’t gotten the chance to sleep with Phil again since that first time, but in his loneliness it’s all Dan can think about. About that last time, and that time he guided Dan through masturbation, and all the little looks and comments that make Dan sweat just thinking about them. He thinks about there potentially being a next time, and how things are going to be when Phil gets back.

When it comes to Phil, Dan is happy to not have a choice. Phil makes the rules. Whatever they end up doing is on account of his impulses, and Dan has no say in the matter. Well, he could say no, but he wouldn’t want to. The only thing driving Dan in those moments is his dick. It’s such a relief to just toss his brain and let his arousal lead the way. With other people, sex is too complicated, too meaningful, too involved. With Phil, it’s just sex. And ‘just sex’ is exactly what Dan needs.

Phil won’t ask him how he’s doing, or bother him about why he stayed at home over break. Maybe Phil is a narcissist of sorts, in the ways he doesn’t seem to give a fuck about anyone apart from himself. At the point Dan is in his life at the moment, that’s exactly what he wants, though. He doesn’t want someone else to pretend to give a fuck about him just to get something from him. Phil gets something from him and he doesn’t make up any excuses about it. 

If someone’s gonna be treating Dan like meat, all Dan wants is for them to be upfront about it.

He doesn’t want to hear another lie, like how his parents excuse their behaviours and try to reassure him that they do love him. Dan won’t be reassured by their empty promises. At least if they were honest, Dan would know what to expect.

Dan knows what to expect from Phil. There’s something so lame and comforting about that.

-

Lame comfort isn’t what he gets when Phil returns because when he returns, Dan refuses to leave his bedroom. He doesn’t want Phil to see his pale skin and sunken in eyes and the way he definitely hasn’t been eating or washing properly for the past couple weeks. Phil may not care about anyone but himself, but Dan has half the mind to at least think about looking attractive to Phil once he sees him.

That turns out to be more difficult than expected. The walls of Dan’s bedroom have become the world and the dryness of his mouth and the erratic beating of his heart have become an ordinary part of that world. If Dan stepped out and made some suggestive comment, he’d have Phil right where he wants him. But as it turns out, Dan doesn’t fucking want Phil right now. He hadn’t expected his refusal to spend time with people to extend to Phil, but now that Phil’s here, Dan can’t even think about looking into his eyes without feeling nauseous from nerves. He’s forgotten how to speak to people and he hasn’t really been turned on recently anyway.

In truth, Dan is scared that Phil might care about someone other than himself. Dan is scared that Phil will see something small and helpless in Dan’s eyes and acknowledge it. Just thinking about that makes Dan feel so angry, so small, and so helpless.

And so, Dan stays locked away from the world for as long as he can. He sleeps during the day and comes out to eat and use the bathroom during the night. Phil may be a night owl, too, but at least during the night time Dan can rest assured that Phil keeps to his own bedroom. He isn’t in as much of a risk of bumping into him at three in the morning as he is during the day.

Dan gets off scot free for four days. He manages to sleep during the days and awake during the night, and he doesn’t catch as much as a glimpse of Phil. But then comes the fifth night.

It’s right when Dan stealthily opens the microwave right before it beeps. He manages to open the bag of popcorn and shove his hand in when he turns around and they go flying everywhere.

In front of him stands Phil, only wearing very loosely fitted square patterned pyjama bottoms, his hair overgrown into a messy emo fringe almost covering his eyes.

What, according to Dan, breaks the silence is Phil’s almost violent hushing noise. But then, that hushing noise could have been a response to the not-very-well restrained scream of terror from Dan the moment he saw some shadowy form leaning his back against the breakfast bar.

The only light comes from a floor lamp in the lounge. The kitchen is dark and dull. The night sky creates a dark blue shadowy shade, making Phil’s soft, skinny chest and stomach look even that much more sharp and striking. Dan’s lack of feeling turned on lately wasn’t going to be a lasting issue, apparently.. No, it’s back at full force, as if it never even left.

It still doesn’t fully override the embarrassment, though. The embarrassment of this being the first time they meet since Phil got back five days ago, or the embarrassment of Dan’s too small boxer shorts and ugly white tank top that he is wearing because he doesn’t have many clean clothes left.

Phil doesn’t mention either of those things. Unless his slow up-and-down over Dan’s body counts as ‘mentioning it’, that is. Instead, Phil goes for the topic at hand.

“You made popcorn?” 

A beat of silence that Dan doesn’t know how to break. And so, Phil breaks it.

“Can I have some?”

-

That’s how they end up in front of the TV, watching an episode of Friends. The popcorn is in a mixing bowl between them on the sofa. Dan didn’t have time to put anything on, so he’s wrapped himself in a blanket while Phil is proudly stretched out in pyjama bottoms that leave nothing to the imagination and a completely naked upper body. Dan doesn’t even have to wonder whether Phil is wearing underwear - it’s incredibly clear that he isn’t. Not that Dan was looking or anything.

Dan is having a perfectly easy time paying attention to Chandler and Joey bickering about an electric drill. His mind is not drifting to other meanings of the word ‘drill’, and how he would very much not mind ‘drilling’ a certain someone on this very sofa.

“I got one of those for Christmas,” Phil says.

They haven’t exchanged many words apart from Phil’s immediately going into some type of authoritarian big brother flatmate voice, badgering Dan about making noises in the middle of the night when they have neighbours. It was easy enough for Dan to talk back to that. What he thought would be an awkward encounter with a lot of explanation involved turned out to just be them arguing like they always do.

This new conversation requires Dan to not toss his brain in favour of his dick, though, and that is turning out to be much more difficult.

“A what?” Dan asks, shoving his mouth full of popcorn.

He can feel Phil glance at him and he ignores it. Well, he doesn’t look back at least. He’s still trying to chew without making his cheeks fill out so that he looks ridiculous. That’s not an easy task given the amount of popcorn that fit into Dan’s freakishly large hands.

“An electric drill, idiot.”

Dan struggles to swallow without choking himself. He somehow manages.

“Oh,” Dan says, glancing back at Phil. “That’s good.”

Phil laughs. Dan’s cheeks go bright red for no fucking reason. He doesn’t even know why Phil is laughing.

“Good?” Phil says, turning his chest to face Dan. “Good if I want to get myself killed, maybe.”

Dan looks back at Phil. The way his torso has turned, the pyjama pants hanging so so low on his hips, makes Dan feel glad he’s covered in a blanket that covers his growing erection.

“You don’t know how to use a drill?” Dan asks, quirking an eyebrow.

He doesn’t either, but Phil doesn’t need to know that.

“Do I look like a manly man to you?” Phil asks. “I honestly thought my dad was joking, but he was serious about it. ‘Everyone needs an electric drill’. Yeah, thanks, where’s the Wii U I wished for?”

Dan laughs, and it’s only half put on. It would’ve been not at all put on if it weren’t for the fact that most of Dan’s concentration is on not looking at Phil’s chest, and stomach, and hips, and lower--

“Damn,” Dan grins. “That sucks.”

“I’d be like Joey with that drill,” Phil says, shaking his head. “Still got the Wii U, though.”

This is probably the most Phil has ever spoken with him about something other than sex or insults. Dan chooses not to focus on why that might be.

“Oh?” Dan perks up. “Did you bring it here?”

“Obviously,” Phil says. Something like a real smile stretches his face as he searches Dan’s expression. If Dan didn’t know better, he’d think Phil seemed happy about his reaction. “I’ll get it set up in the morning.”

“It’s morning now,” Dan counters with smirk.

“Twelve pm is morning in my world,” Phil shrugs.

This should be the end of it. This should turn into Phil sitting back to watch the episode and both of them going back to their own separate rooms by the end of it to sleep. But that’s not what happens.

Instead, Phil keeps looking at Dan with unwavering interest. It makes Dan wonder if he’s somehow got X-ray vision, and is now silently judging how hard Dan’s dick is underneath the blanket in those too tight boxer briefs. A flush of warmth covers Dan head to toe as he thinks about it. He’s not into being degraded. He’s not into feeling embarrassed. And yet, the idea of that mixes into this moment and Dan isn’t turned off. That probably doesn’t mean anything, and if it did, all it would mean is that Dan hasn’t had his dick touched by anyone other than himself for over a month. Anyone showing interest in him would make him almost come in his pants at this point. Totally. That’s what it means.

Dan braves looking back at Phil and holds the eye contact that’s offered to him. There’s some heat there. Some tension. But it isn’t crushing. There’s still something playful and mean in Phil’s eyes, made evident by the growing smirk on his face.

“I’d really fancy a wank right now, if you don’t mind.”

The tension and allure of the moment is completely broken as Dan doubles over himself, spluttering out his incredulous laughter.

“What?” he wheezes.

The humour fades the moment Phil reaches out and grabs Dan’s shoulder. He pushes him to sit upright. There’s that mischievous look again, not at all affected by Dan’s sudden outburst.

“I’d ask for a blow job but I figure you’ve got more experience with your hand and I’m not up for an oral lesson right now.”

Dan’s bloody _ears_ are burning, that’s how hard he’s blushing.

“Fuck off,” Dan tries, shrugging Phil’s hand off his shoulder.

“Alright,” Phil grins, finally turning to face the TV. “Suit yourself.”

It doesn’t take more than a second before Dan glances back at Phil. He’s so unbothered about being turned down. He’s just eating popcorn and laughing at the stupid episode like nothing happened. Dan does have some pride. He won’t give into just any suggestion. At least, that’s what he tells himself as he inches himself closer to Phil, so much so that he eventually bumps the mixing bowl between them. Phil doesn’t look surprised in the least. He places the mixing bowl on the coffee table instead, inviting Dan even closer.

The episode is coming to an end. Phil leans forward and puts it on pause.

When he leans back, he puts his arm over the back of the sofa, so close to curling around Dan’s smaller shoulders. Dan finds himself blinking up at Phil through his lashes, biting his lip. Phil’s eyes are dark and hooded, waiting the moment out. Dan doesn’t know what he’s doing, or what he’s asking. He doesn’t want to just give Phil a hand job like he’s too horny to have a sense of dignity. Phil should do more than just ask for that, shouldn’t he? But then again, isn’t that exactly what Dan likes about him?

Dan doesn’t have time to finish his thought, because suddenly Phil’s arm does curl around his back, bringing him even closer, grabbing his hair and pushing their mouths together. Dan absolutely melts. He doesn’t even care that his dick is poking against Phil’s thigh or the fact that Phil can feel how hard he is. He just wants to enjoy the way Phil’s tongue slides into his mouth in a down right dirty kiss that doesn’t ask for anything but exactly what Dan wants to give him.

Dan feels around until his hand rubs over Phil’s crotch. His cock is hard, too. Phil groans, pushing into the touch, and Dan strokes him through his bottoms for a bit before Phil pulls himself out and grabs it himself.

“Lick your hand,” Phil says, low and delicious.

Without as much as a look of confusion, Dan brings his palm to his lips. Keeping eye contact with Phil, he licks a wet, wide stripe up it, making sure to get as much spit as he can on there.

“Good,” Phil says, and he almost sounds genuine. “Now stroke my cock.”

Before long, Dan finds himself straddling one of Phil’s thighs, rutting against it as he moves his hand up and down Phil’s cock. It’s so thick and hard in his hand, it makes his mouth water. He ends up with his mouth on Phil’s neck as he fucks his thigh and jerks him off with measured strokes, intent on the end rather than savouring the moment. Dan could come his brains out within seconds, so he wants Phil to get with the program as quickly as possible so that he won’t embarrass himself too much.

By the sounds of it, Phil is right there with him, bucking into every touch and groaning curse words every time Dan squeezes the tip of his dick or plays with his balls.

“God yeah,” Phil moans into Dan’s hair. “You’re so sexy. Fuck.”

Dan hums a wordless response, going faster over Phil’s dick.

“Yeah?” Phil asks, words rushed and breathy. He’s gonna come soon, too. Dan can feel it in how rock solid his cock is now, how tight his balls are. “You like that? Like rutting your cock against me like a dog?”

“Fuck off,” Dan groans against Phil’s neck, shivering with it. He likes it so much.

“Yeah,” Phil says. “You do. You’re getting off from humping my thigh like a slut.”

He grabs Dan’s hair then, not hard, but hard enough to pull him back so that they can look in each other’s eyes. Phil’s pupils are blown so wide Dan almost can’t make out the blue of his eyes. Still, there’s a question in his ‘I’m about to come’-expression that Dan nods to, whatever that question is.

Dan fucking knows what he’s asking. He just doesn’t want to think about it. He wants to pretend like being called those words doesn’t turn him on enough to make him drool.

“You gonna come?” Phil murmurs. “Gonna come like a dirty little dog?”

Dan lets out a raggedy breath, feeling his own thighs flex as they tighten, going hard as steel. He’s about to come, fuck, he’s gonna _fucking_ come all over---

But then Dan’s hand is covered in Phil’s cum and he’s pulled out of the intensity of it. He’s startled and a little bit proud that he made Phil come first. He can’t stay smug for too long, though, because the long, almost pained moans coming from Phil push him over the edge and then Dan’s too tight pants are soiled and wet with cum as he shakes, humping Phil like a slutty little dog, just because Phil downright asked him to wank him and the only thing standing between Dan and getting someone else off is, apparently, a question.

They breathe hard in the aftermath, but it only takes a couple seconds for Dan to sit back, not touching Phil, vision blurry as he tries to gather himself from the explosive orgasm he just experienced.

Dan hears a long sigh, then feels Phil pat his shoulder.

“Go wash up and go to bed,” Phil says.

Dan looks up at him. He doesn’t know what to say.

Phil has pulled his pyjama bottoms back up and besides the sweat on his forehead and the flush reaching down his chest, there would be no telling what just happened just by looking at him. Dan can’t imagine the same could be said about himself. He feels absolutely weak, legs like jelly, mind finally shut off.

The hand on Dan’s shoulder strokes up his neck until it’s cupping his cheek. Dan leans into it, like he always does. Phil is so gentle.

“What do we say?” Phil asks.

Dan brushes his lips over the palm of Phil’s hands. He opens up his eyes to a look of admiration that he feels embarrassed and proud to be on the receiving end of.

“Thank you.”

-

The start of the next term doesn’t make for a lot of hanging out at the flat. Dan feels renewed for about two days. He makes an effort with his appearance, feeling spurred on by the realisation that there is a world outside of the four walls of his bedroom and finally getting around to taking care of the obscene amount of laundry he’s been neglecting since the start of the holidays. It’s beyond him, really, how much he has to do when he’s just one guy who doesn’t exactly own a lot of clothing apart from his underwear and his collection of semi-ironic t-shirts. Nevertheless, now it’s all sorted and Dan finds himself not feeling too bad about himself when he catches his reflections in windows on his way to school in the morning.

Like the start of every term, Dan decides to really buckle down this time. He stays at school when the lectures are over to study. He accepts invitations to the parties now that everyone is reunited. As long as Dan lies through his teeth, he should be fine going to those gatherings. He’s only going to live up to some idea he has of what University life should be, anyway. Even though nothing about life past Wokingham has been nothing like he expected, he is dead set on playing the part. Everyone else seems fine just going with the motions, getting drunk and doing course work, so why shouldn’t Dan be? Why shouldn’t Dan be able to form meaningful friendships and feel like he’s actually apart of something, rather than standing on the sidelines and hating every single person he encounters?

It lasts for about a month before it goes from difficult to excruciating. School stresses him out even if he’s doing things on time. He doesn’t get anything from the social gatherings other than existential anxiety and feeling fake. He blew his shot with these people when he had that breakdown and had to move away from the student accomodations. They already know he’s dodgy, disappearing for months on end and coming back pretending to be a person he isn’t. He keeps making the same mistake. He acts like he cares about these people more than he does. He goes along with their formula, because everyone does. And what everyone else does, should be correct for Dan too, shouldn’t it? Dan is so tired of feeling othered and different. He just wants to blend in and have his brain work like everyone else’s.

The first thing that goes when Dan is starting to struggle is partying. He stays in instead, focusing solely on his school work. If he lets go of that again he could be kicked off the programme. The amount of courses he’ll have to redo after everyone else has graduated is only growing and for the time being, Dan really can’t see an end to his University experience. The idea of that fucking kills him. He just wants this part of his life to be over, so that he can start up something else. He ignores the continuously proven fact that every time he starts over, things still go to shit because he’s still Dan and Dan only fucks things up.

By the end of February, Dan is doing the bare minimum to pass his exams and spending the rest of his time playing video games. That, and not at all obsessing over Phil’s straight boy of the month.

Dan doesn’t know what happened to Liam, but he hasn’t seen him since before Phil left. No, now there’s another guy, fawning over Phil whenever he’s over at their place. Dan can tell Phil gets a kick out of it. He acts in that way that he does when he’s trying to seduce someone. He keeps from smiling too widely, and when he does, it’s a strategic, attractive laugh.

Dan doesn’t hate this guy like he hated Liam. This guy doesn’t have a smug air about him at all. He doesn’t say anything when Phil pokes fun at Dan if Dan happens to leave his bedroom when the guy is around. He just stands back, waiting politely until Phil is done showing that he has some superiority over his flatmate. If it were anyone other than Phil, Dan would think that it’s pathetic. And while everything Phil does when the new guy is around is to show off for him, Dan can’t help but be impressed.

There is something specific about Phil that draws these questioning guys in. It’s not every openly gay guy that can keep a straight guy in denial around for as long as he does. Dan thinks he knows what it is, even though he really doesn’t think about it that much. Because he doesn’t. He is perfectly fine, not obsessing, just observing. What he has observed is that Phil makes these people feel comfortable in the same way that he’s made Dan feel comfortable when they’ve done things.

Phil doesn’t ask these guys of anything that they aren’t ready to give. He doesn’t make assumptions about anyone. He simply lets things run their course, and getting what he wants in the process. That must be why Phil takes on the closeted ones. He wants casual sex, no strings attached, no lovey dovey-ness. That might be why Liam isn’t around anymore. Liam definitely had it bad for Phil, and Phil won’t accept that.

Still, there’s a difference between how Phil treats these guys and how he treats Dan. Not that it matters. Not that Dan feels accomplished or anything, knowing he isn’t in the same category as them. But he knows there’s a difference, because he notices that Phil is being fake with them. He notices that he’s making an effort to seduce, even though Phil manages to look effortless doing it. With just the two of them, it’s more of an almost-friendship only due to the fact that they live together, anyway. Phil let Dan play his Wii U the day after they first hung out after the holidays. They play together sometimes and it’s just fun. The only difference between them and any other pair of flatmates is that there’s a power dynamic which is evident in everything they do.

The power dynamic is just that Phil decides what they do. He looks at Dan like he thinks it’s funny, getting to take charge of a guy who resists every step of the way but never fully resists all the same. Dan doesn’t care. They’re flatmates. They both have to keep things good and civil, Dan especially, because he’s not about to add homelessness to the growing list of problems he’s taking on.

It’s a Saturday, when Dan is surprised to find that Phil is at home playing the new Mario Kart rather than being anywhere else or having someone over. Dan has decided that this is going to be a good day. He has decided that he’s going to be a normal person today. And so, he’s awake at ten am, freshly showered, and when he notices Phil in the lounge he sits down on the armchair with his coffee rather than cooping himself up in his bedroom.

Phil glances at him quickly when he sits down, but he remains focused on the game. He’s wearing different pyjama bottoms today. They’re green, covered in little cute Bulbasaurs, and they’re just as loosely fitted as the other ones. He’s wearing a plain grey t-shirt, and his black hair is just as perfectly emo-messy as it always is. If Dan didn’t know better, he’d think Phil was trying to look attractive for him. The only thing that makes him think otherwise is the fact that Phil is wearing his glasses. Phil definitely doesn’t wear those when he’s trying to seduce the straight guys, for some reason. Dan doesn’t understand why. Phil looks good in his glasses.

Today is going to be a good day, Dan has decided. So he lets himself think that thought. He lets himself look at Phil instead of the screen, because that’s what he’d rather do. He’d rather watch Phil bite his bottom lip and knit his eyebrows together in concentration. Dan lets out an inaudible breath, taking in Phil’s slender neck and broad shoulders. And yet, he’s so delicate. Slender fingers and dainty wrists. Dan gets a sudden urge to grab. He wants to grab that pretty, small waist and turn him over on the sofa. He wants to push those pyjama bottoms down and squeeze his perfect tight ass and--

“First place!” Phil exclaims, putting the controller away and grinning.

Dan blinks. The confidence he was building up fades in an instant as reality hits him and he looks away from Phil and at the screen when Phil finally looks at him. His heart is starting to beat harder and his mouth is drying out. His head gets filled with indistinguishable worries, floating into one another, making it hard for Dan to remain present. It’s so fucking stupid. He was going to have a good day. Why does one little change have to make that suddenly feel ten times more difficult than it did a minute ago?

“Good morning,” Phil says, distinct and challenging.

It forces Dan to look back at him lest he look like a fucking weirdo. Dan takes a sip of coffee and nods. He feels alert, in that anxious annoying way, but he pretends to be tired. Being tired is a much better reason to be acting weird and distant than anxiety is. Not that Dan would admit to feeling anxious in a million years. It’s just a stupid, made up thing in his head.

“Morning,” Dan nods, strategically avoiding Phil’s piercing gaze by looking back at the screen. “Did you manage to set it up for playing online?”

“Yeah,” Phil says. “It’s impossible, though. Everyone else is Japanese. I can’t beat even the worst Japanese Mario Kart player, I don’t think.”

Dan fakes a smile, glancing back at Phil. It’s strange, how Phil can be so easily self deprecating when it comes to things like these, about video games and the electric drill, and yet still look attractive and confident in himself. Dan doesn’t even look confident about the things he’s actually good at.

“Bet I could beat them,” Dan says. Because he could. Still, he just sounds like a bratty child saying it.

“Really?” Phil asks.

The disbelief in his voice pushes Dan out of his head and into the moment. He whips his head to face him and mocks an offended expression.

“Well, yeah!” he insists. “Haven’t you noticed I beat you pretty much every single time we play?”

Phil rolls his eyes. “That doesn’t prove anything. Anyone could beat me.”

This time, the self deprecation doesn’t sound as confident. Dan gets an urge to disagree. He’s not sure if he should follow it. He’s not Phil’s fucking therapist. What has he been doing, really, analysing his behaviour like he has? Dan is so lame. When his dick gets hard for someone it makes him try to figure them out, as if that’ll lead to something. He can’t believe his dick might actually be the armchair psychologist in the room.

“Not anyone,” Dan finds himself disagreeing.

Phil grins. It looks exactly like the grin he sported when he won the race. Why the fuck does Phil think he’s winning now?

“Aw,” Phil says, sarcasm dripping from the word. “You’re so nice to me, Dan.”

Dan blushes hard. “Shut up.”

“Yes, you are,” Phil sing-songs, smug and unfairly teasing. “Such a nice, good boy.”

Why does that make Dan feel hot all over? And not in a shameful way. In a ‘please touch my dick’ way.

“Sure,” Dan says, rolling his eyes. He takes another sip of coffee. “I’m a good boy.”

The way his skin flushes red completely betrays the attempted amusement of his tone.

“I’d rather you proved that than the Mario Kart thing, to be honest,” Phil says.

The teasing tone of his voice is completely gone. Now he speaks slowly, each word emphasized in a deliberate manner, catching Dan’s attention and making a chill run down his spine.

Dan finishes his coffee and puts his cup on the table. He smiles. Phil is carefully following his every move with a steely gaze.

“Why would I?” Dan asks with a shrug. “You already think I’m good.”

It’s fucking embarrassing, saying it out loud. Like it’s an actual thing, something between them, the issue of whether Dan is a ‘good boy’. A couple years ago, Dan would’ve refused to accept being called something like that. Well, actually, Dan would refuse to be called that now, too. But it’s different with Phil. Even if Phil says it like it’s a joke, and like he’s getting off on filling Dan with some twisted filthy shame, there’s another layer to it which makes Dan feel safe in accepting it. The mocking part of it only feels like fun. Like a safety net, in case one or both of them decide they don’t want to take it where it’s obviously leading to.

Plausible deniability. The thing Dan’s always changing mind has to cling to in order to survive.

Phil must be well practiced when it comes to that. Dan can’t imagine that his forwardness has always gone down well.

“Might think you’re good for certain things,” Phil agrees, but his grin is way too self satisfied for that to be all. “Don’t know if you’re good enough to fuck me, though.”

Dan gawks at him. It’s not like they have sex all the time. What they do couldn’t even be called a regular thing. It’s more of an off-chance event, happening every so often, when Dan isn’t hiding and Phil isn’t busy with something or someone else.

And yet, Phil takes it upon himself to refer to unspoken things like these as if they’ve been spoken before. As if he has no doubt in his mind that Dan is okay with it.

“So you want me to fuck you?” Dan shoots back.

Phil doesn’t get the upper hand this time, he’s decided. Dan can be a snarky asshole, too.

Phil is still just unfazed, smiling like he knows something Dan doesn’t. Dan feels a sudden urge to slap him.

“I do,” Phil admits, still smiling like everything’s normal and Dan is the stupid one. “You couldn’t handle it though. I’d rather be fucked by someone that won’t come within three seconds.”

Dan splutters a laugh.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he says, hoping his voice won’t reveal how hard he’s pushing not to sound stupid and horny and enamoured.

“Oh, I’m not,” Phil says. “You could fuck any asshole and it’d be the same story.”

Dan is torn between his growing desire to be degraded and the childish voice inside that wants to argue. It’s fucking crass, how Phil so easily says that out loud. That Dan wants to fuck his asshole, specifically, no sugar coating.

“I’m not fourteen,” Dan ends up saying, undecided enough on which direction to take it for it to make him sound unsure. “I’m twenty. I’m not a bloody virgin.”

Phil smiles. All the layers come down for a moment, and something genuine becomes visible in his expression. He leans forward, resting his chin in his hands, regarding Dan in a, to Dan, uncomfortable silence.

“You’re cute,” Phil says. “Did you know that?”

“Shut up,” Dan says. “No guy wants to be called ‘cute’.”

Phil’s genuine fondness remains. Dan finds that he hates it. It makes him feel too vulnerable.

“Maybe not,” Phil says. “But you do, don’t you?”

His voice becomes gentle then, telling Dan that it’s okay. His inflection is evidence that he’s not actually making fun of him. Somehow, that makes this way more difficult. Dan doesn’t want this to feel real. He doesn’t want to feel like what he says matters, right now.

But like always, Phil still gets through to him. Dan finds himself following where Phil’s mind is going and helplessly matches his honesty when he speaks next.

“Yeah,” he says, looking at Phil’s gorgeous, plump lips as they part. “I like it.”

-

Dan had thought that it would lead to another one of those not-regular moments. Instead, Phil ended the conversation by asking Dan to eat something. The growling of his stomach was too loud at that point for Dan to have any ground to stand on disagreeing. And so he got cereal and a banana as well as another cup of coffee, in the confusing aftermath of a conversation that was uncomfortably blunt and genuine at the same time as it didn’t really reveal anything. 

While Dan ate, Phil went to his bedroom and closed the door. He didn’t look back. He gave no indicator that Dan was in any way welcome to follow him in there once he finishes eating. Once again, Dan is under Phil’s thumb with no clue as to how that will end. For all Dan knows, Phil’s new straight boy could walk through the door right this moment and leave Dan thinking about the fact that Phil thinks he’s cute, and that he apparently has to be a good boy if he wants to fuck him.

It continues after Dan’s brushed his teeth. He leaves the bathroom to find Phil leaning casually against the wall next to his bedroom door, a little ways down the short corridor next to the hallway. He stops midstep, eyeing Phil suspiciously. There’s nothing in Phil’s stance that asks the question. It’s rather a statement, clear as day. His chest is slightly puffed out. He’s got a hand stuffed in the pocket of his Bulbasaur bottoms. The outline of his cock is evident right next to the outline of his hand.

“Come here, good boy,” Phil grins when Dan doesn’t move.

Dan walks slowly towards him, ignoring the fact that he can feel the hairs on his neck raise just looking at Phil and being called those words. He’s not into it, really. It isn’t real. Phil’s got that mocking grin on his face again and it makes Dan feel safe enough to pretend like it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just banter. Dan is only turned on by the suggestion that they’ll have sex. Nothing else.

The hand in Phil’s pocket comes to the side of Dan’s face once he’s close enough. He waits a moment, Dan in his hold, just looking over the attempted indifference displayed on Dan’s features. Dan takes a hold of the hem of Phil’s t-shirt. His knuckles brush right beneath the small pudge of Phil’s beautiful stomach. Phil breathes in sharply at the contact. Dan meets his eye, horny and shy, before Phil pulls him into a wet kiss.

Phil grabs Dan’s wrist. Dan’s hand goes limp as Phil strokes it lower, right over the growing hardness of Phil’s cock. Dan takes a hold of Phil’s shoulder, squeezing tight, as the rush of arousal spins through him.

“You make me so hard,” Phil says. “Fuck.”

It’s a goddamn rush to Dan’s system. He flattens his palm, really feeling the shape of Phil’s cock over the fabric, relishing the intimacy of the fact that he’s starting to feel familiar with it. Not intimate in the way that they’re anything to each other - just that he knows what Phil looks like, what Phil feels like. He knows what Phil likes. He knows what Phil wants from him.

Phil wants him to comply. Dan can do that. Dan is desperate to do that.

And, best of all, Dan gets to do that.

Their shirts are off by the time they get inside Phil’s bedroom. Dan doesn’t give a fuck that he’s out of shape. He doesn’t give a fuck that his stomach is bigger than Phil’s, or that his boxers dig into his flesh, making it spill over slightly on top. It isn’t ordinary for Dan to feel this way with another person, but he chooses not to analyse it. Instead he decides to revel in how attractive Phil makes him feel straddling Dan’s lap, running his hands over the softness of his gut as if he can’t get enough of it. 

“So fucking hot, aren’t you?” Phil says, pinching both of Dan’s nipples. “God. You drive me crazy.”

Dan takes a hold of Phil’s ass. He remembers that Phil likes that, after that one other time. Not that Dan has replayed that in his head so many times that it almost seems surreal at this point.

“I really want to fuck you,” Dan says.

He’s sitting against the headboard of Phil’s double bed. They have a lot more room in this bed than they do in Dan’s. He’s got a hot guy in his lap, telling him how sexy he thinks he is. Dan feels desperate to savour this moment. It seems too good to be true. It’s embarrassing, how Dan can think that, almost as though he’s already nostalgic about it before it’s even ended.

“You can,” Phil says.

Phil is leaning in for another kiss when Dan pulls back, confused, looking at Phil’s face as it settles. He sits back on Dan’s thighs. 

“On one condition,” Phil finishes.

Of course. Dan rolls his eyes. It isn’t as effective as it would’ve been if he wasn’t currently kneading his fingers into Phil’s gorgeous buttocks with the hunger of a lion about to devour a sheep, but he tries.

“What’s the condition?” Dan asks, lacing his voice with annoyance. He’s not annoyed. He’s fucking thrilled.

Phil pushes Dan’s hands off his ass. He takes hold of his wrists, lays them on his lap.

“Do you have any experience with restraints?” Phil asks.

Dan stares at Phil. Phil doesn’t laugh at his surprise. He looks serious, for once, searching Dan’s eyes as if he’s trying to read his mind.

“What, like bondage?” Dan asks.

Phil nods. He remains searching, quiet.

“No,” Dan responds. He sheds some of his put-uponness for the sake of calming what he is starting to perceive as being Phil’s nerves.

“Do you want to try?” Phil asks carefully.

His thumbs are running soothing circles along the insides of Dan’s wrists.

“Who’s being restrained?” Dan asks.

Phil smiles. Something mean makes its way back into his eyes.

“You,” he says.

Dan thinks about it. He trusts Phil with a lot of things. He trusts him to make fun of him because it’s hot rather than hurtful. He trusts him to continue to kiss him and have sex with him, without that much fear of establishing a relationship. He trusts all of it to be part of whatever undefined thing it is they have, and that it won’t affect Dan renting the spare bedroom in Phil’s flat.

He doesn’t know whether he trusts Phil enough to be tied down. As a solitary thought, unaffected by the idea of getting to fuck Phil as a result, it seems bloody terrifying.

“It’s not _really_ a condition,” Phil says. “But it could be fun, couldn’t it?”

“How would you wanna do it?” Dan asks, swallowing dryly.

Phil tilts his head to the side. There’s some genuinity there again. Dan looks away. He can’t be subjected to something real right now.

“I’d like to tie your pretty wrists together and secure them to the headboard,” Phil says, nodding at it behind Dan. “And I’d like to tie your ankles together in the same way, to the end of the bed.”

From the way Phil says it, it begins to sound appealing. Still, Dan is unsure.

“Why?” he asks.

Phil chuckles. He brings one hand up to stroke Dan’s cheek. Dan looks into Phil’s eyes and offers him a bashful, blushing smile. Something almost aggressive appears in Phil’s expression. Not in a dangerous way. Rather, he looks aggressively turned on.

“Fuck, you’re so-” Phil pauses, breathes. Then he leans in. The kiss is warm. Dan opens his mouth and hears himself whine once Phil’s cock pokes against his stomach. Phil sits back. “Okay.”

Dan gives him a curious look.

“Because you’re gonna be a good for me,” Phil says. “Yeah? You’re gonna earn your treat.”

Dan’s mind is blank. Any hesitance has been wiped from him in favour of filling out his dick and letting it guide his actions.

“You’re alright with that?” Phil asks. “If you ever need me to stop, for any reason, I’ll stop.”

Dan lets out a nervous, excited laugh.

“Fuck, what are you gonna do to me?” he asks, a slight fear creeping back in.

Phil smirks, but it’s gentle.

“Just tie you up,” he says. “Make fun of you a little bit. Take away your control because you fucking love it when I dom you.”

Reality breaks into the moment. The anxiety from earlier stirs inside. He fucking hates that. It’s what they’re doing, isn’t it? Phil is dominant. Dan is submissive. Just because they say it doesn’t mean it’s any more degrading, or shameful. Still, if Dan wasn’t already so horny it hurt, he would’ve argued against the wording.

Rather than letting it go, though, Phil doubles down on it.

“You love doing as I say,” he says, challenging Dan’s unwelcome resistance. “You love it when I make your pretty little balls go empty, you cum so hard.”

Dan breathes harder, turning his hands over in Phil’s lap to squeeze. Phil grins, covering them with his own.

“I promise it’ll be good,” he says, a note of seriousness coming back. “I’ll make you feel so good. And then you get to fuck me, too.”

“Yeah?” Dan asks, so quickly it’s embarrassing.

Phil laughs.

“Yeah.”

Phil skates his palm from Dan’s stomach, up his chest, over each shoulder. It makes Dan feel bigger, stronger. His stomach is filled with butterflies, each one hornier than the other.

“You wanna do it?” Phil whispers, stroking back down over Dan’s chest.

Dan only wants one thing, really. He wants to fuck Phil. If this is something Phil wants in return for that, Dan guesses he’s fine with it.

And so, he takes Phil’s hands and leans forward. He bites along Phil’s jawline.

“Fuck yeah,” Dan whispers back.

-

The restraints aren’t just regular ties you could get anywhere. No, these are proper ones. Black, padded, designed for the utmost amount of comfort. They shut by velcro, rather than a lock or a knot. Something about that feels soothing. There’s no way to really do velcro wrong, Dan doesn’t think.

The two pieces are linked together by a silver chain. Phil attaches a second chain to both sets of cuffs, one that he’ll click onto both ends of the bed. It starts to send a thrill through Dan, when Phil fastens one set of cuffs around his ankles. It’s a bit scary, but exciting. Phil is going slowly, probably because he doesn’t want to spook him. It feels almost excessive. Part of Dan wants him to just put them on him and get started, because he’s not made of glass, it’s not going to kill him.

Another part of him is grateful for it. Phil secures Dan’s ankles to the end of the bed and then comes up to him. They’re both naked now. He rubs Dan’s cock and kisses him deeply, moving his hand across Dan’s back in a soothing motion. Dan breathes harder, longer breaths.

Phil seems to take it as an indicator that he can continue. He looks at Dan’s face as he cuffs his wrists, searching as always. Dan hopes he looks indifferent, cool; not like an inexperienced child. He doesn’t want to look unattractive. Didn’t Phil say he didn’t want to give out lessons last time?

Maybe this is fun enough for Phil to want to make the effort.

It’s different, when both Dan’s ankles and wrists are locked together. The fear, or unease, could turn into panic, but Phil is so very careful to avoid that. He seems to know how to make sure it won’t happen. Every step of the way, he checks on him. Not always asking, sometimes simply taking Dan’s cock in hand and stroking it hard again, reminding him of what all of this is going to lead to.

Once Dan is fully locked down, he doesn’t really think about it. His wrists are tied up and his ankles are tied down; he’s on complete display for Phil. It’s the most exposing position he’s ever been in. And still, Dan manages to think with his dick. Because at the moment, Phil is kissing said dick and stroking it. He’s licking up the underside. He’s mouthing at the head, oh, _God_ \--

With a jerk of his hips, Dan attempts to move out of Phil’s hold. If this keeps going, Dan’s gonna come and it’ll be over. He can’t come yet. Phil doesn’t even seem to realise. His eyes are closed. He’s sinking his warm, wet, wonderful mouth over Dan’s hurting erection and it’s agony to hold back.

Dan cries out, hips stuttering, as he staves off the orgasm yet again. Phil opens his eyes, pulling off Dan’s cock.

“What is it?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”

He continues to stroke Dan’s dick. There’s something wicked and patronising in his tone. Dan groans. For the first time since the cuffs were put on him, he feels well and truly restrained.

“I’m gonna--- fuck you, Phil.”

“That you will,” Phil agrees with a smirk.

Dan looks at Phil’s cock, half hard between his legs. Then he screws his eyes shut, praying to whatever higher power that could possibly exist that he won’t come yet.

“You’re gonna make me come, asshole,” Dan spits out, eyes still closed.

“That’s alright,” Phil says with an easy shrug. “You can come if you want to.”

He lies down along Dan’s body. Once he kisses his neck, Dan finally turns his head and looks at him.

“You want me to come?” Dan asks, embarrassed.

“Should make it easier for you to last longer later,” Phil grins. He gives Dan an easy kiss. The slow stroke of his hand up and down Dan’s cock feels amazing, if Dan allows it to. “Come on. You want to be good, don’t you?”

Dan fucking hates his life.

“Fuck you,” Dan twists.

“You alright?” Phil asks.

He’s using his real voice. He sounds serious. His hand has stilled. Dan blinks up at him, feeling small and stupid.

“Does it feel good?” Phil prompts again. “If it doesn’t feel good I could change my-”

“No, no,” Dan says, shaking his head, finally finding his voice. “It’s okay. I--”

God, he hates to admit it.

“I like it,” he finishes. “When you do that. It’s--- hot. It’s good. I like it.”

He’s blabbering at this point, sensations running all over his body. Phil is hardly touching him now, only holding his cock, but the restraints make him aware of every single physical feeling. Not in an anxious, uncomfortable way, but in some soothing way. Phil is in control now. 

Fuck Phil. He’s so fucking smug and sexy and evil and amazing.

“You’re sure?” Phil asks.

Dan nods.

“Can I come now?” he asks.

It twists something inside, asking. It’s the type of uncomfortable that somehow makes Dan feel like he could come his brains out.

“Mhm,” Phil says. “Don’t forget to say--”

“Please,” Dan rushes, remembering.

Phil begins to jerk him off with purpose. A few strokes later, Dan is whining and pushing against the restraints as three thick ropes of cum splatter across his chest and stomach, one after the other. The rest dribbles down over Phil’s knuckles. Dan can feel it in his fucking asshole, it’s so good. His moans come out unrestrained and it’s embarrassing until Phil muffles them with his mouth in a sweet, messy kiss that Dan chases as the orgasm subsides.

Now that Dan can think past the haze of his arousal, nothing seems to make sense.

“Now what?” he asks.

Phil smiles, eyebrows raised in question. Dan can feel one of Phil’s hands on his stomach and chest, but it isn’t until he looks down that Dan realises that Phil is messing with his cum. He’s fucking playing with it, gathering it all up over the palm of his hand, rolling the thicker parts down. It’s almost disgusting. So fucking filthy. So fucking hot.

“Now?” Phil says, rubbing Dan’s cum over one of Dan’s hard nipples. “Now we keep going. If you want to.”

He doesn’t say it with the same alarm in his voice. It’s not a question. Phil is well aware that he could keep Dan in these restraints and have his way with him for the rest of his life if he wanted to.

No one should be able to have that power over him. But, Dan is twenty. He’s horny as hell. This isn’t strange, really, that the idea of doing this for hours on end is appealing to him. As much as he hates when Phil acknowledges that, he knows that it’s true.

“I want to,” Dan mutters.

Phil giggles like the evil motherfucker he is.

“Poor baby,” he taunts him. “Your life is so hard.”

Before Dan finds any words to retaliate with, he is subjected to the sight and sensation of Phil closing his mouth around Dan’s cum covered nipple. And then he sucks.

Dan doesn’t know anyone that would willingly just... Take someone else’s cum in their mouth if they didn’t have to. Dan doesn’t know if he should feel bad. It just feels fucking good. Phil is absolutely shameless.

He flicks his tongue over Dan’s nipple. It’s so wet and puffy now. Dan has to close his eyes. He doesn’t know if he can take the sight of himself like this, completely at Phil’s mercy.

“You taste good,” Phil whispers. He ghosts his lips over Dan’s clavicle. Dan jerks, the metal of the chains between his cuffs on both ends making a clanging noise. “Did you know that?”

When Phil’s lips are gone, Dan opens his eyes. Phil is lying beside him, watching his face, waiting for a response.

How the fuck do you answer a question like that?

Instead, Dan just shakes his head. Despite everything, he still feels shocked by the situation he’s in if he thinks about it hard enough.

Phil leans down. Dan’s lips are tingling like crazy, being so close to Phil’s without touching them.

“Wanna taste?”

Phil pushes his mouth against Dan. Their lips are parted, tongues sliding wet together. Sure enough, Dan can feel the tangy taste of himself on Phil’s tongue. His heart starts beating hard. Phil had his cum in his mouth and they’re _sharing it_ like something Dan’s only seen in porn. He never imagined that it would be such an erotic experience in real life.

Phil pulls back. “What do you think?”

Dan lets out a nervous laugh. It’s so weird every time Phil puts him in this position. Like he’s asking Dan to say something sexy, to act a certain way. Dan just blushes. If his hands were free, he’d cover his face to hide.

“Aww,” Phil smiles, stroking the side of Dan’s face. “Baby’s embarrassed.”

“Fuck off,” Dan bites back. It’s his most standard response to everything Phil says, apparently.

Phil’s gentle, soft hand goes straight as he slaps Dan’s cheek. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel like anything. But everything about it is still so sudden, so unexpected. Dan stares up at Phil, probably beet red. He’s getting fucking hard again because Phil slapped him. What the fuck kind of person is Dan, really?

“That’s no way to speak to your superior,” Phil says.

Dan waits for Phil to laugh. But Phil doesn’t laugh. He keeps the role he went into and once again, he waits for Dan to say the next line. Dan doesn’t know what the fuck his line is supposed to be.

“Apologise,” Phil demands.

“I’m sorry,” Dan says immediately.

“For what?”

Dan hardly remembers what it was he did. Phil slaps him again. This time it’s, if possible, even less impactful.

“Stupid child,” Phil tuts, grabbing Dan’s cheek in an absolutely degrading way. “You’re gonna be polite from now on. You hear me?”

Dan splutters a nervous laugh. Finally, Phil offers the smallest smile in return. It puts some of Dan’s nerves at ease.

“I hear you,” Dan whines. “I’m sorry, okay?”

Phil’s eyebrows twitch.

“Okay,” he says, sitting up. “You’re off the hook for now. But watch the attitude.”

He gets up from the bed. Dan frowns.

“I’m just gonna go get some stuff,” Phil says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Okay,” Dan says flatly.

Phil worries his bottom lip between his teeth.

“I could untie you meanwhile if you want,” Phil says. “Do you want that, Dan?”

Before Dan even thinks about it, he shakes his head. “I’m fine.”

Phil leans back down. He cups Dan’s cheek and looks at him like he’s something to not only look at, but something to marvel at. Dan’s blush spreads down to his chest.

“Good boy,” Phil says.

He keeps the eye contact. It feels grounding, despite the fluttery nerves and pounding heart in Dan’s chest. Dan doesn’t even joke this time. He just smiles, like he accepts the compliment. And Phil just smiles back, as if he is truly feeling proud of Dan at this moment.

And then, just as quickly, Phil is out the door.

There’s a rush going down Dan’s spine, sparkling inside his chest. He’s leaking precum against his thigh. It’s not only that Phil is reprimanding him, telling him what to do, and tying him up. Dan finds that he enjoys creating a reaction. He enjoys being fussy and stupid and challenging. He’s excited. He wants to see what Phil does next, and what he would do this time if Dan misbehaves.

Part of him wants Phil to really grab him and make him feel it. It’s not something he’s thought about wanting before. And yet, he feels bold and powerful, when in reality he’s in a position that would suggest he feels the opposite. Tied down and exposed for another person’s pleasure. Completely vulnerable. Dan just wants to take it further. He knows Phil won’t do that if he doesn’t ask for it, and Dan isn’t sure he would dare to ask for it, but…

Dan stops himself from analysing it just as he feels that part of his brain opening up. It’s hard to keep away from it, especially when Phil isn’t here to ground him. Maybe he should’ve asked him to untie him after all. 

Dan is about to spiral when Phil comes back. He’s got a-- He’s got a fucking basket of things. Dan is so surprised that the previous thoughts leave his brain and he simply stares at Phil standing naked beside the bed, placing the basket on the bed next to Dan’s hip. While Phil is busy taking whatever is in there, Dan shamelessly stares at Phil’s cock. It’s completely soft now, nestled inside his foreskin. He’s got a good dick. The balls-to-dick proportions are perfect. It looks almost cute when it’s soft. Dan wants to kiss it.

Fuck, that’s lame, isn’t it? Dan’s not some dreamy romantic. He’s not gonna make up a fucking poem about how cute Phil’s cock is.

The first thing Phil takes out of the basket is a towel. He runs it down Dan’s chest. It’s warm and damp, taking the mess away. He even wipes it over Dan’s cock. Dan feels smaller. This is treatment is in some ways more difficult to accept than Phil literally slapping him in the face.

“Feels nice, yeah?” Phil asks.

He folds the towel to the other side, and pats it over Dan’s forehead, cheek, chin, lips, neck. Dan makes a face, laughing. The towel is so soft. He didn’t realise how much he’d been sweating. It’s nice to get some of it off. His skin feels absolutely renewed.

“You can pretend all you want,” Phil says as he puts the towel away. “I know you like this stuff, too.”

Of course he does. Because Phil knows fucking everything, somehow.

The second thing Phil gets is a blanket. He puts it on top of Dan. It’s warm. Comfortable. Phil makes sure to tuck it in along his sides and over his feet. Dan didn’t think he was cold before, but the warmth is a glorious change. Then Phil goes so far as to unclip the cuffs from the head board. Dan is still restrained, but Phil pushes his hands down. It’s wonderful. Dan’s shoulders are singing praises. Then Phil covers his arms with the blanket as well, and Dan is just a small cocoon of warmth. He doesn’t think anyone’s taken such care of him since… Not since he was under twelve, that’s for sure.

“What are you doing?” he asks, because he can’t not anymore. “Is the second part of this nap time?”

Phil grins.

“No,” he says, slow and patient. “I just thought you’d appreciate the modesty. And I don’t actually want to hurt your shoulders. Also, it’s warm, right? Cosy.”

Maybe Phil cares about people other than himself.

Dan’s chest aches at the thought.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, blinking away the needle tears trying to pierce their way out of the corners of his eyes.

He doesn’t want Phil to care. Not like that.

Phil looks back at him, from where he’d been once again rummaging through the basket. Phil sees. Dan knows that Phil can see the effect this is having on him. Phil might as well end it right now. Apparently, Dan isn’t up for the task. He’s too stupid and overemotional. He’s been stressed out for weeks on end and this small reprieve from that is getting to him in a different way than Dan thought it would.

But, amazingly, Phil doesn’t say anything. He just gets a water bottle and shakes it lightly in front of Dan. The contents splash against the sides, creating a noise.

“Thirsty?” Phil asks, uncapping it.

He’s about to put it against Dan’s lips when Dan can’t take it anymore. He shakes his head.

“I can do it myself,” he says.

His tone is sharp, bordering on angry. Dan almost feels bad, but then again, he didn’t ask to be babied. He gets a say in this, too, doesn’t he?

Phil shrugs. “Alright.”

He stacks some pillows behind Dan’s back so that he can sit up comfortably. He pushes the blanket down and puts the bottle in Dan’s hand.

“Thanks,” Dan mutters, half-apologetic.

Dan notices the fond look on Phil’s face from the corner of his eye. He decides to pretend he didn’t.

The water is heavenly. He hasn’t even been restrained for long. Phil just made him come. It’s not like it’s a big deal. And yet, Dan feels like he just ran a marathon. He lets out a sigh, feeling himself really leave the version of himself that wanted Phil to slap him and push him harder for a moment.

Phil lies down next to him against the pillow stack. He grabs Dan’s blanket and covers himself with half of it. His hip is against Dan’s, as well as his shoulder.

“How are you feeling?” Phil asks.

“Fine,” Dan says.

It’s quick, automatic. Phil looks at him.

“I mean, it’s a lot, right?” Phil elaborates.

Dan twists uncomfortably. He shakes the water bottle, indicating he’s done with it. Phil takes it and downs the remaining contents of it before he puts it back inside the basket.

“Kind of,” Dan admits.

Phil turns slightly. Dan can feel his dick against his side.

Phil’s arm extends along the pillows above Dan’s head. Dan doesn’t think. He just pushes his head forward a bit, and Phil puts his arm over his shoulders, against his neck, as if that’s a thing they do now. As if a cuddle break is something Dan will just accept.

The back of Phil’s thumb comes to stroke the side of Dan’s face.

“Do you want to keep going?” Phil asks. “Do you need to pee?”

Dan literally feels like a child, in some ways. But Phil asks in such a matter-of-fact way, like none of this is strange at all. Like they’re just two people enjoying something and they need to check in on each other in order for it to actually be good for both of them. Phil isn’t patronising right now, asking these questions. He’s just himself. Sure, he’s holding Dan close and stroking his cheek, but it’s comfortable.

Dan refuses to fully give in to that comfort. It’s too complicated. But still.

“I wanna keep going,” Dan says.

Phil’s expression changes as he says it. It’s like a veil drop of sorts, reality fading in and out of the moment, putting focus on the playing rather than the outside world. Phil leans in. He kisses Dan and Dan kisses back and the cuddly moment grows into something hot. Phil is moving his hips, rubbing his cock against Dan. Phil pushes the blanket off from on top of the two of them. Dan doesn’t open his eyes, but then something shifts. Not by a lot, just a movement of Phil’s arm, but Dan gets curious.

Phil is wanking. Against him. It’s slow. He is squeezing, pulling the foreskin back and forth, and his cock grows into hardness. Phil nudges Dan’s cheek with his nose, and somehow Dan realises that it means that Phil wants him to kiss him again. So Dan kisses him again. It’s as simple as that.

“Pretty boy,” Phil breathes.

Dan flushes. He flexes his fingers, suddenly reminded that he’s restrained. He just wants to touch. Himself, Phil, anything. But he can’t. Not unless he asks for it.

“Gonna put your pretty boy cock in my ass.” Phil goes faster over his dick now, Dan can feel it. “You want that, don’t you? Want a tight hole to fuck?”

Dan whines. It’s not even slightly exaggerated. It’s a genuine reaction, coming from him. He would be ashamed if he wasn’t so goddamn turned on.

“You’ve been good,” Phil keeps going. “You deserve it.”

Dan grins. Phil’s hand stills. He looks at Dan’s face, and Dan pokes his tongue out at him.

Because, suddenly, he’s overcome with a desire for Phil to let him know who’s boss. Dan won’t pretend like it’s anything else. Not right now. He’s gonna get to fuck Phil’s ass and just knowing that makes him feel fucking giddy.

Phil must realise, because he sits up. He shoves the pillow stack to the floor and straddles Dan’s stomach. Dan’s hands are at his chest, tightly locked together. Phil puts his hands on Dan’s shoulder pushing him down the mattress. The weight is wonderful and crushing.

“You’re trying something, hm?” Phil asks, grabbing Dan’s jaw with one hand. The hold is hard, harder than anything Phil’s done before. “Think you can get the upper hand here?”

Dan can’t help the gleeful smile stretching over his face, toothy and open mouthed. His heart is pounding excitedly inside his chest. He attempts to shake his head ‘no’, but Phil’s grip is too strong. Dan splutters, suddenly overcome with nerves and excitement, failing to find any words that will match the impressive change of Phil’s mood and behaviour.

Phil tilts Dan’s head up, exposing his neck. Dan breathes shallow breaths.

But then Phil lets go, and Dan can focus again. Phil is stroking his cock, looking down at Dan’s face, and there’s no humour in his eyes. He’s just taking the moment in. He’s shameless, as always, not giving a fuck what Dan might be thinking of him right now.

“Sorry,” Dan says. “I’ll be good.”

It’s still embarrassing to say.

“Mhm?” Phil asks, stroking his cock in long, slow motions. “I know you will be. You’ve wanted to fuck me for a long time, haven’t you?”

Dan lets the shame run through his body as he nods. From his limited experience, the best parts have been when Dan’s accepted the embarrassment and the shame and let himself feel aroused by it, regardless of what it could mean.

“Please, can I fuck you?” Dan forces himself to say.

Phil pauses momentarily. The confidence wavers, as he looks down at Dan. There are times, when they’re like this, that Phil seems like he’s overcome by something that Dan can’t name. All he knows is that he loves the fire in Phil’s eyes as he attempts to collect himself enough to keep going as planned.

“Of course you can,” Phil says, quiet and meaningful. The earnestness is soon replaced by a smug grin. “I’ve wanted that slutty cock in my ass for a long time, too.”

He reaches for the basket and pulls out a bottle of lube. Uncapping it, he squirts some out on Dan’s chest. Dan raises an eyebrow. Phil stretches his palms over Dan’s chest, spreading the lube out over his pecks, over his nipples, squeezing and grabbing as though Dan’s got something there to grab.

“You’ve got pretty tits, too,” Phil says.

Fuck.

Phil chuckles. Because he is evil.

“You’re into that, huh?” he asks, rubbing his thumbs over either nipple, just to end up squeezing them again. “You like it when I play with your cute little tits?”

“Fuck, Phil,” Dan groans. The rush of arousal goes straight to his cock. Dan can feel it stretching up his stomach, neglected and aching for touch.

It’s goddamn electric. Dan is realising a lot of things about himself today. And yet, Phil makes it feel okay, in his own odd way. Phil is literally laughing at him as he tries out new things to do and say, teasing him once he finds out that Dan somehow likes every single one of them. And Dan finds comfort in that. There is nothing normal about any of this but Phil acts like it’s all okay, and so, Dan thinks that it’s all okay, too.

“Don’t worry,” Phil says, leaning down. He takes a hold of the chain between the cuffs and bites Dan’s jaw. “It’s hot. You really are a horny dog.”

Dan exhales a hard loud breath through his nose. His leaks precum onto his stomach.

Phil pulls the chain again, this time leading it down until Dan wrists are against his chest. Phil scoots forward the tiniest bit. He takes his cock in hand, placing it between the palms of Dan’s restricted hands.

“Fuck,” Phil groans when Dan makes a tight grip.

Dan hasn’t touched Phil like that for the entire time they’ve been doing this, he realises. He makes the grip tighter. Phil fucks into it in a stuttery, off-beat rhythm. Dan watches his face the entire time. The clenched jaw, the messy hair falling down to cover his shut eyes. His chest is heaving up and down. His nipples are so pink and pretty, all hard. Dan thinks he can feel Phil’s pulse on the head of his cock as he slides his thumbs over it.

“Okay, stop,” Phil says, pulling back.

His cock is so hard. Dan watches as it deflates the tiniest bit. He’s frankly impressed that Phil can stop himself in moments like that. Phil looks at Dan’s face with a smile.

“You’re so cute,” he says. “Like what you see, hm?”

He swings his leg over Dan’s body, half-lying down next to him. He’s stretching out just so, putting himself on display with admirable confidence that makes up so much of Dan’s attraction to him. Phil grabs his cock, stroking gently, and looks at Dan.

“You like watching me,” he says, searching Dan’s face.

Dan’s insides twist. He’s being very compliant at the moment. He wants to be, sure, but there is still a voice inside that is stubborn and insecure and doesn’t want to be some little bitch. Despite the volume of that voice, Dan meets Phil’s eyes and nods. Phil captures Dan’s lips with his own. It’s slow, hot. Dan struggles against the restraints as it rushes through him like a waterfall.

Then, two fingers strokes up the underside of Dan’s dick. Dan twitches again, like a full body spasm, overwhelmed by the gentle but sudden friction.

Phil laughs, low and breathy. He plays with the edge of Dan’s foreskin where it’s only slightly folded just below the head of his cock. Dan groans, bucking his hips. It’s too fucking good.

“You’re holding back so hard right now, aren’t you?” Phil asks.

His fingers trace up the head of Dan’s cock. Dan is going to fucking go insane.

“Phil,” Dan groans.

Phil sits up, grabbing Dan’s cock at the base. He meets Dan’s eyes and grins, waving the cock in his grasp.

“Poor guy,” he says, looking down at Dan’s cock. “So needy and sensitive.”

Dan goes still. He breathes laboured breaths. He doesn’t know if he wants to tell Phil to get the fuck on with it or if he wants to remain in this; to bask in Phil’s patronising, affectionate words.

It turns out, Dan can have both. Phil puts some lube in the palm of his hand and slathers Dan’s shaft and balls in it. He does it in such an efficient, practised manner that it almost seems impersonal. Impersonal or not, the wet slide of Phil’s hand makes Dan bite down on his thumbs in an attempt to distract himself from the feeling.

“Ready?” Phil asks, straddling Dan’s stomach.

Phil guides Dan’s cock to his hole. Just feeling those tight butt cheeks against the head makes Dan twitch. He bites down harder. He thinks he can hear Phil laugh. He can’t know for sure, what look Phil has on his face right now. Dan is scared to open his eyes. He’s way too fucking excited about this. His heart is hammering, fast and hard, against his chest.

“Dan,” Phil beckons him. “I asked you a question.”

Phil is breathing harder now. He’s pushing Dan’s cock between his cheeks, against the rim of his asshole. Dan nods urgently.

“I’m ready,” he says.

To Dan’s surprise, Phil doesn’t question that. Instead, he sinks down Dan’s cock. He’s holding his breath, trying to find the best angle for his hole to open up. It feels like every second is a minute long, but then Phil finally sinks down for real, hugging Dan’s cock tight and snug, and suddenly time seems to rush forward as Dan categorises the new sensation.

“Thrust up a bit,” Phil says on a heavy exhale.

Dan opens his eyes. He doesn’t need to think. The sight of Phil’s long, slender, gorgeous body next to the feeling of his warm hole squeezing Dan’s dick makes Dan’s hips twitch upwards and then Dan is suddenly balls deep inside of him and Phil sits back, stroking his own cock, watching Dan fall apart.

Phil leans forward a bit. He grabs at the cuff around one of Dan’s wrists, leveling his weight against it as he begins to bounce up and down Dan’s cock. Dan meets every bounce with an eager thrust. The slide goes easier every time, and the goal goes from them trying to figure out the technicalities to indulging in the feeling of how everything centres to his cock. Phil is so fucking good. It’s like he’s got lifetimes of experiences, doing just this, bouncing on a cock without an ounce of shame.

“Feel good?” Phil asks.

He’s still holding his breath, letting out rushes of it from time to time, making his voice sound strained.

Dan nods. He’s been holding his breath, himself.

“Tell me,” Phil says. “I want to hear it.”

Dan can hardly trust himself to breathe in this moment, let alone speak. Phil is so tight. His hole is a perfect slick tunnel, open enough for Dan to go fucking crazy if he lets himself.

“Unh,” Dan supplies, cracking one eye open.

Phil is smiling. His face is flushed pink. But that’s not what catches Dan’s attention. It’s the look in his eyes, a level of arousal that Dan doesn’t think he’s actually seen so plainly on another person’s face before. Dan stills his hips.

Phil, mercifully, stops moving too.

“You’re so good,” he says. “Hey. Look at me.”

Dan opens his eyes back up. The arousal is still plain to see, but it isn’t as sharp, it isn’t as intimidating.

“Stay with me here,” Phil grins. He slaps Dan’s cheek playfully. It’s wet with lube. Fuck. “If you’re gonna turtle in on yourself I might as well use a dildo.”

Dan lets out a surprised laugh. He feels himself refocus the tiniest bit.

“Isn’t that what I am now?” he finds himself saying. “Your personal dildo?”

Phil’s expression changes. He dips his thumb inside of Dan’s mouth. Dan sucks, hard.

“Depends,” Phil says through the shudder of the sensation. “Is that what you want to be?”

Dan isn’t sure what prompts this sudden boldness. He just goes with it.

“I’ll be anything _you_ want me to be,” he admits.

“Well,” Phil says with a chuckle, “then what am I doing, doing all the work here?”

Dan is about to ask what he means when Phil pulls off his dick. He lies down next to Dan on the bed and spreads his legs.

“Go on,” he says with a challenging stare. “Fuck me.”

Dan struggles to sit upright for only a couple seconds before Phil gets impatient and grabs his arm. He pulls him close, turning him over, and then they’re chest to chest. Phil takes a hold of either of Dan’s elbows and nudges them with his fingers to make Dan stretch them out so that his arms go over and around his head. 

It’s painfully intimate, being face to face with their lubed up cocks sliding wet against each other. Phil has softened a bit. He’s rolling his hips gently upwards, skating his palms down Dan’s back until he reaches his buttocks, squeezing. Dan’s mind is blank. His body is electric with feeling, but he’s not thinking. He’s sunken into something different, something that waits for whatever Phil says next.

“Good boy,” Phil murmurs, giving one of Dan’s butt cheeks a gentle slap. Then he grabs, hard, and Dan’s hips jerk forward. Phil chuckles. “Are you gonna keep being good for me?”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Dan says again, like some sort of horny mantra.

He’s rewarded by that fire in Phil’s eyes, the one that seems difficult to contain, the one that makes Phil grab him hard and fuck up against him with more purpose. Dan dips his forehead against Phil’s clavicle. It doesn’t successfully stave off the rush, but it slows it down.

It picks back up, because Phil grabs a hold of Dan’s aching cock. He shifts, spreading his legs further, to guide it back inside of his perfect tightness. Dan moves his hips to accommodate the changing position. Once the head of Dan’s cock is nudging against Phil’s hole, he stills.

“Fuck me,” Phil says-- no, orders.

Dan’s mind is reeling. He thrusts forward a bit too hard. Phil winces visibly, but says nothing. Dan sinks inside further, gentler this time. Phil lets go of his cock, allowing him to bottom out.

“So fucking eager,” Phil tuts.

He grabs Dan’s ass, pushing him in harder despite the words. That dangerous arousal returns to Phil’s expression as he squeezes around Dan’s dick. Dan blubbers out a stupid groan, desperately trying not to move his hips before Phil tells him to.

Phil laughs.

“What a sweet baby boy you are,” he taunts him. “You’re trying so hard.”

Dan’s cheeks burn with embarrassment. His hips twitch then, a tiny tiny movement.

It feels like an explosion, building almost too quickly for Dan to control it. The moan it unleashes is pathetic in its audible desperation.

“Fuck,” Dan squeaks, body tight. “Sorry. Sorry.”

Phil frowns, but his eyes are filled with laughter.

“What, did you come?” he asks.

Hearing Phil say that word when Dan is _on the goddamn brink_ is almost enough for it to actually happen.

“Don’t talk,” Dan says through gritted teeth.

Phil’s eyebrows raise in surprise, but he sucks his lips in between his teeth and holds in whatever words he has to say. All Dan knows is that they’d be spoken on a laugh. Phil looks absolutely sadistic, laughing at Dan struggling.

He was supposed to prove to Phil that he isn’t some stupid horny boy that will come quickly. He’s proving the fucking opposite. But Phil still seems to be enjoying himself, even if it’s for other reasons than Dan would prefer.

Dan’s muscles finally relax a little bit.

“There we go,” Phil says, the grin fading as he rubs Dan’s back. “That’s it.”

It tugs at something vulnerable; the inflection and the soothing touch. Dan presses his lips together, determined, breathing in deeply through his nose.

“You feel so good,” Phil whispers, continuing to run his hands over Dan’s back. “Your cock’s perfect.”

Phil takes a hold of Dan’s ass. He pushes, slightly, indicating that Dan can start to move. Dan does, slow measured strokes that make his ass clench so hard Phil can’t get a good grip on it. Phil’s eyes change to that arousal, as Dan rolls his hips with a growing ease as he gets used to the feeling.

“Such a perfect little toy,” Phil says, in that same quiet voice. “It’s like I got you custom made or something.”

Why the fuck is it so erotic to be blatantly objectified?

“Fuck me harder.”

It’s stern, sharp. Dan doesn’t think before he obeys. His hips snap forward harder. He watches in awe as each thrust seems to roll through Phil, breaking a moan out of his throat.

“Yeah, like that,” he says. “Fuck yes. That’s sexy.”

Phil messes a hand into Dan’s hair. He pushes his head down and Dan goes willingly, tucking his face into the crook of his neck. It’s comforting. Dan can’t help but dive into it as just that; comfort, to exactly the extent Phil means for it to be.

“Yeah, yeah,” Phil says, encouraging, letting go of the previous meanness of his tone. “Faster.”

“Phil,” Dan warns softly.

“I know,” Phil says. It’s kind, understanding. “It’s okay. You’ve been so good.”

Dan whines, going faster, taking everything he imagined getting when he’d finally get to fuck Phil.

“Just fuck me like that,” Phil says. He cups the back of Dan’s neck, squeezing it hard like he owns him. “Fuck me like this until you come.”

Phil’s legs wrap around Dan’s waist. He’s entirely clinging to Dan’s body, going with the motion of each roll of his desperate hips. It coils into Dan’s stomach, the squeeze of Phil’s tight pink little hole and the feeling of his body wrapped around him. The gentle, deliberate squeeze around the back of his neck. The clutch of his flesh on his side. It’s all a testament to exactly what this is, that Dan’s body isn’t for himself but for Phils pleasure, and when Dan lets go of any preconceived notions he may have of being that it creates sparks underneath his skin that take him further.

Further, further, further.

Snap, snap, snap.

Phil seems to go tighter for every second. He’s breathing moans, lips against Dan’s hair.

The arm around Dan’s back disappears to slip between them, as Phil grabs his own cock.

Phil clamps down hard around Dan’s cock. Dan can feel the wetness against his stomach as precum dribbles out while Phil wanks himself weakly.

Weakly, because Phil’s body is spasming through an orgasm that seems to come so deeply that Dan almost doesn’t realise that’s what’s happening at first.

“Oh, fuck, you little slut,” Phil spits out, back arching as he finishes coming. “You make me come so good.”

His body is slacker now, but he still holds onto Dan hard, perfectly aware that Dan loves it.

“Keep calling me that,” Dan whispers, hips snapping.

He’s about to come. His heart is pounding.

“Call you what?” Phil teases.

“Call me a slut,” Dan says. He’s too far gone to care about how much he’ll regret saying it later. “Tell me I’m good. Say that I’m a dirty fucking dog, I don’t care, fuck- Phil--”

Phil laughs, free and airy.

“Mmh,” he hums. “Such a good, slutty little dog, hm? Are you gonna come inside me?”

Dan huffs. He’s shaking.

“Answer,” Phil says, stern, beckoning.

“Yes,” Dan whines, voice breaking. “Oh my G--”

He spurts a dirty load in Phil’s asshole, shaking and thrusting like an animal. The metal chains clang as he struggles against the restraints, body squirming, twitching, spasming out of control with the feeling of it as it builds and finally calms.

Dan’s heart is still racing once he slumps against Phil’s body. Phil reaches between them, pulling Dan’s sensitive dick out, but returns to holding Dan in a tight grip, legs still wrapped around him, arms locked over his back, hand squeezing the back of Dan’s neck.

Discomfort comes heavy, sinking like a stone in Dan’s stomach. It’s like he’s realising where he is and what he’s doing, and what he’s been reduced to. The restraints are a mockery and it isn’t hot. His throat goes dry.

“Good, good,” Phil whispers. “Shh. You’re so good, Dan. You did so well.”

The sharpness of it fades.

“Beautiful,” Phil whispers. “Gorgeous boy.”

And so it’s gone completely, replaced by exhaustion. Still, a few tears roll down Dan’s stupid cheeks. Phil doesn’t mention them. He keeps the hold, scattering kisses against the side of Dan’s face, rubbing encouragements and praise into his skin. 

-

Phil takes care of him after.

He uncuffs his wrists and ankles. He wipes him off with a towel, as well as himself. He puts clean, comfy boxers on him and covers him in the blanket which they share for a little while, breathing together, bodies close. Dan cries a little bit more. Phil still doesn’t say anything about it. He only tells Dan how good he is, and Dan eventually realises that he isn’t crying out of sadness or shame. He’s crying out of relief. Phil decided for Dan in the most vulnerable situation, but he didn’t do it for his own gain, because Phil cares about someone other than himself.

The past couple months. The feelings of abandonment from his family, his inability to be everything he wants to be because he’s too stressed out. It has been released in some sort of way and it may not last but at least he has this - this moment without it. This moment of being cared for, really cared for, as Phil makes sure he drinks water after, feeds him a couple of sugary chocolate cookies, keeping him in his arms all the while, watching some dumb cartoon on Phil’s laptop.

Dan’s aches have been soothed and he’s not angry about his entire life. He’s happy about this part of it.

Phil pets the side of his face and looks at him like… something. Whatever that is at the moment, Dan’ll take it. ‘Something’ is almost more than he can handle, anyway.

It isn’t until later, when Phil has convinced Dan to sleep with him in his bed that night, that Phil smooths the palm of his hand over the side of his face. The room is covered in darkness, but Dan can make out the kind features of Phil’s face all the same. 

“What do we say?” Phil asks.

Dan swallows. He doesn’t want it to end.

The kindness in Phil wavers into confusion. Dan steadies himself up on his elbows so that his face is level with Phil’s. His eyes roam what he can make out in the darkness. Phil’s expectant expression, seeing what’s taking so long.

Dan leans in. He pushes his lips against Phil’s and Phil lets himself be kissed. Fear blossoms in Dan’s chest. Fear that takes root in so many things that he could think himself crazy about.

Dan pulls away. Phil is still cupping Dan’s face. 

“Thank you.”

That night, Dan falls asleep, spooned by the older flatmate he hardly knows but who somehow seems to know him - more deeply than Dan could’ve ever imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! please consider sharing if you enjoyed it :')
> 
> [reblog on tumblr](https://intoapuddle.tumblr.com/post/190826272993/flatmates-part-ii-explicit-15k-words)
> 
> [retweet on twitter](https://twitter.com/intoapuddle/status/1228376800415318018)


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh my god they were flatmates...and Phil's new guy has been around for long enough now, in Dan's opinion.
> 
> Phil/Dan/PJ
> 
> (This chapter: jealousy, degradation, a surprise threesome and lots of blowjobs)

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”

The chanting has been heard from across the corridor for a good few minutes now. Dan is definitely not sharpening his ears to listen closer. He’s not trying to decide if the bed is squeaking, or if it’s the floorboards, just so he can visualise a position. Phil’s straight boy of the month is called PJ, a guy Dan has seen around campus a few times and who definitely doesn’t meet the criteria of Phil’s usual conquests.

He’s not big, or muscular, or airheaded. Not as far as Dan can tell, anyway. He seems to hang around the same circles as Phil, and there’s no question about whether he’s gay. Given the painted nails and the obviously careful thought put into his appearance Dan would be surprised if this PJ character was under any illusion that he’s straight. He’s definitely comfortable with his sexuality.

He’s not Liam in any way, shape, or form.

It makes Dan’s stomach twist a little bit, this sudden change. For all he knows, there could be feelings involved this time. But then again, PJ seems to only come over to fuck Phil just like the rest of them. That’s what Dan is imagining right now, anyway. Because it’s definitely Phil moaning and encouraging PJ right now. The sound is distant and weak, but Dan knows that it’s Phil. He’s got enough experience now to be able to tell.

Thankfully, Dan isn’t into Phil like _that_ , so the idea of PJ being an actual romantic interest rather than a conquest doesn’t make Dan jealous enough to not get turned on listening to them. He’s paused the game on his computer and sat in silence listening for a while now, come to think of it. Just as he realises, there’s a loud grunt and suddenly all the other noises stop. The rhythmic squeaking is no more. Dan palms himself through his joggers and twists his mouth, feeling a rush go through him as he imagines the guys sweating and panting together in the afterglow.

Dan wonders if Phil takes control with the other guys like he’s done with him. It makes Dan’s heart race as anger flares deep in the pit of his stomach. Imagining that Phil treats PJ like an easy dumb boy, that he makes fun of him and ties him up, is more upsetting to Dan than anything else.

Phil’s bedroom door opens. Dan listens to the soft padding of feet on carpet. The shower turns on in the bathroom. He hears giggling, then laughter getting muffled by what Dan can only imagine is a kiss. They’re going to wash off together and probably get off one more time.

Okay, so it doesn’t make Dan angry to imagine Phil getting a boyfriend. It really doesn’t. But fuck, if it doesn’t make him a little bit sad. A selfish part of him despises the laughter and ease he’s been hearing through the walls for the past week, such a big change from how Phil usually goes about treating the dudes he brings home. Really, the thing is that when he’s with PJ, Phil sounds like he does when he’s with Dan. There’s no fakeness, no trying to be sexier than he is.

Rhythmic moaning is heard from the shower and Dan can’t take it anymore. He wanks to the same beat and bites down on his hand to stop himself from moaning. No matter how conflicted Dan might be feeling at the moment, it doesn’t take long before he comes.

-

The next week, PJ comes around more often than Dan would like him to. That’s what Dan thinks regarding any guy Phil brings over, but this isn’t the same as those times.

There’s no weird competition in the air when PJ’s around. All that happens is that they all get take out and watch films together and bond over nerdy interests. Phil isn’t pitting Dan and PJ against each other for fun like he would with Dan and Liam. It feels like having a second flatmate, in a way, just how civil everyone’s being.

It’s all so… normal.

Normal should be a goal, really. Being treated like he’s not four years younger than both of them should be the goal. Being included should be the goal. Getting along with PJ should be the goal.

Dan hates all of it.

Every time PJ’s around, there comes a moment during the evening when Dan can’t take it anymore. He can’t take the normalcy or the fun. He ends up leaving in an embarrassing rush. There’s no explaining it, really. It’s not a thought process or an emotional reaction. All Dan can describe it as is that he’s had _enough_. From one moment to the next, Dan would rather rip his skin off than sit on the sofa cushion next to the guys as the two of them snuggle up under a blanket together. It’s all fine until it’s not, really. Tonight is no different.

“I’m heading to bed,” Dan says decidedly as he gets up from the couch. 

He refuses to look directly at the way PJ’s arm settles over Phil’s shoulders, how Phil relaxes against PJ’s chest. He refuses to look but he can’t stop noticing.

Dan grabs the empty bowl they had popcorn out of and gives them both a tight, fleeting nod. The guys glance at each other. Yeah, Dan fucking notices that too.

“Alright,” Phil shrugs. There’s no worry, no tension, nothing. “Good night.”

Dan knows his face is red now, from stupid frustration and this pathetic need to be put in his place. Still, all he does is plaster on a smile and say “good night” in return before he stomps off. PJ asks Phil about it even before Dan’s slammed the door to his bedroom, and that aggravates him even more. This weird openness like PJ’s so comfortable with both of them that he can just ask Phil if Dan is okay and not worry about whether Dan hears that or not.

Dan isn’t comfortable. Truth be told, part of what he wants is discomfort, but not this kind. He wants controlled discomfort, the type that ends up with Phil on top of him. Twisted pleasure, all from knowing how pathetic and desperate he is. The only comfort Dan can take from it is the idea that Phil’s playing with him, in the most subtly cruel way possible. 

Phil hasn’t been playing with him since last time, when Dan finally got to fuck that tight asshole while chained up and being made fun of. Dan’s glad it hasn’t happened again because that time, it went too far. Dan was vulnerable and needy and emotional in a way that he doesn’t get, ever, and he doesn’t want to entertain that part of himself more than necessary.

He won’t pretend like he doesn’t miss it, though. He won’t pretend like the fact that they haven’t done anything since PJ came along worries him slightly. But he will pretend like this is some elaborate scheme made up by Phil to have Dan be even more desperate next time they fuck.

Dan wouldn’t put it past him, really. All he’s left to question is why the hell it makes him feel better about all of this.

-

The sound of the door opening at two am a few days later makes Dan jump.

He’s on the couch, full from the pizza he had by himself and woozy-headed from the amount of hours he’s spent playing Phil’s Wii U. He’s bloated and a little sweaty and not up for listening to Phil and PJ make out in the hallway.

He doesn’t hear that. What he hears is Phil haphazardly tossing the keys onto the dresser, kicking off his shoes. He’s stumbling and loud as he goes to the bathroom. Dan expects that to be it. Phil’s drunk, having gone to a party, and he’s going to pass out right after having a wee.

Dan’s not sure if he’s seen Phil proper drunk before. The idea of it is mildly entertaining, actually. Much more so than it would’ve been had PJ come home with him. Dan looks back from the sofa as he hears Phil exit the bathroom and stumble his way through the corridor. He doesn’t stop by his bedroom. He keeps walking, and as soon as he’s in Dan’s line of sight he stares directly at him in the way he only does when he _wants_.

Phil is wearing a green flannel and tight black pants. His bird nest of an emo haircut is rough and all over the place but definitely still hot enough for Dan to want to run his fingers through. His lips are so pink. 

Phil doesn’t say a word as he sits down next to Dan on the sofa. It’s almost weird that it’s just the two of them now. Dan can literally feel PJ’s absence. It makes that strong pull between him and Phil that much stronger. They don’t even need to say anything. It’s clear from the moment Phil sits down, in the way he doesn’t waver as he looks at Dan and strokes one of his socked feet. People normally get goosebumps from having their feet touched, don’t they?

Phil doesn’t bother waiting for longer than it takes for Dan to work out that that’s a question he doesn’t want to entertain right now. Phil grabs Dan by the shoulders, gets their faces as close as possible without actually touching. Dan’s so gross right now but Phil is looking at him like he’s the hottest thing he’s ever laid his eyes on.

They’re practically nose to nose, mouths so close, breathing heavily even though nothing’s happened yet. Phil wets his lips. Dan would for sure give in at any other time, but instead he pulls back when Phil starts to lean in.

“Where’s PJ?” he asks.

Phil’s looking at Dan’s lips like that’s all he is. Dan is getting hard just thinking about that.

“Not here,” Phil breathes.

He finally looks back into Dan’s eyes. There’s something less polished about Phil right now. Not that Dan would ever describe Phil as ‘polished’ any other day, but there’s some lack of confidence that Dan hasn’t seen from him before. Dan swallows.

“Kiss me already,” Phil groans, leaning in. Dan isn’t one to not follow direct orders.

Phil tangles his fingers in Dan’s hair, pushing their lips together. He’s so fucking hot. He tastes like liquor and a night gone wrong, but Dan’s not about to ask questions. He’s happy to be the final mistake Phil makes at the end of what must have been a bad day. He holds on to Phil’s sides, grasping and letting go intermittently because he’s not quite sure he’s allowed. Phil is sure about this, though. He pushes Dan to lie down on the sofa and drapes himself over him, heavy and delicious and, _fuck,_ Dan’s turned on.

They keep making out and though Dan’s mind is blank, he can’t help but consider that Phil hasn’t been playing the games Dan wished he was. He’s just winging it, coming home drunk and stumbling right into the arms of the guy he goes to whenever he’s in between boytoys.

Dan’s not complaining about that. He’s got nothing to complain about.

They don’t make out for long before Dan ends up on his knees in the kitchen, grabbed by the hair, gagging around the cock pushed down his throat. He hadn’t expected today of all days or these circumstances being the next time that his older flatmate would take advantage of him, but things don’t generally turn out how Dan suspects they will. Especially not things involving Phil.

Phil pulls out, allowing Dan a rattly breath. Dan’s holding on to Phil by the belt loops of his jeans. Phil’s cockhead is shiny and pink and so close to Dan’s mouth, still. He opens up and takes it back in his mouth just to suckle on it. Phil lets out a whooshing sigh, thighs trembling with restraint. For someone that came home drunk at two in the morning, Phil is asserting an impressive amount of self control.

The idea of feeling unsexy and gross is long gone. Dan feels sexy and desirable now with his chin spit slick as Phil’s hand cards through the sweaty hair on the side of his head. He isn’t holding on as tightly as he was. He’s just keeping him there, pushing his dick deeper into Dan’s mouth.

“So good,” Phil mumbles, stroking his thumb over Dan’s cheek as they look into each other’s eyes. “So good for me.”

Dan doesn’t mean to moan at the praise, he really doesn’t because that would be lame, but there is definitely a sound muffled around the cock in his mouth that may or may not have something to do with what Phil said. It makes Phil look away and halt the slow, shallow thrusting he’d been doing. Dan hears a hiss, and then Phil is pulling out, releasing an almost embarrassingly genuine groan.

“I’m-fuck,” Phil gasps, hand suddenly flying over his cock. “I’m coming.”

Dan has no time to react before cum hits his cheek and bottom lip. Phil turns away, finishing into his own hand. Without even thinking, Dan sucks his bottom lip into his mouth to taste.

Phil glances at him with a flushed smirk. “Of course you swallow.”

He goes to wash his hands and tucks himself back in his jeans. Dan remains on his knees, loopy and embarrassed and not really sure what he’s supposed to do now. He’s too horny to argue, anyway. Something about Phil being drunk makes him feel less like he has to defend himself.

For a terrifying second, Dan thinks Phil is just going to leave him there. But he doesn’t. He walks up to him, tilts his chin up to look at him, and strokes the wad of cum on Dan’s cheek towards his lips.

“Did you want more?” Phil’s voice is so dark and Dan is so hard it hurts.

Dan doesn’t answer. He opens his mouth and sucks at Phil’s thumb, heart pounding at the look in Phil’s eyes as he does.

“Up,” Phil says.

Dan stands. Phil kisses him hard on the mouth. He tastes like sex even if Dan was the one getting face fucked just now, not Phil.

“For future reference, you probably shouldn’t do that,” Phil says. “I’m clean but you know, not everyone is.”

Dan should be too horny to be embarrassed, but he isn’t. He pulls away, wordless, face burning. That’s not a reaction he’s had to swallowing another guy’s spunk before. Phil goes off protocol in everything he does, truly.

“Don’t look like that,” Phil groans. He stands behind Dan, wrapping his arms around his torso. His fingers play with the hem of his boxer shorts, too idle for how fucking hard Dan is. “You’re gonna make me horny again.”

Dan sighs hard, pushing his head back against Phil’s shoulder as Phil finally, _finally_ takes Dan’s dick in hand and starts to wank him. For a second he doesn’t process what Phil said, but then he does, and he has questions. “Wait, what? Look like what?”

“So humiliated, scared you did something wrong,” Phil whispers into his ear, squeezing Dan’s balls. “Scared I won’t want to fuck you anymore.”

“There’s probably something wrong with you,” Dan says before he can think better of it.

Phil pauses momentarily, then huffs out a warm laugh. “Fuck off. You like it.”

Dan’s properly fucking Phil’s hand now. He doesn’t really care for whatever pillow talk Phil’s doing. It’s too early for that, but Phil is nothing if not a selfish asshole most of the time.

“Tell me you like it,” Phil says, no longer meeting the movement of Dan’s hips.

“Shut up,” Dan groans. “I just wanna come.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to someone that’s wanking your cock.”

“Phil-”

“Tell me you like it,” Phil insists. “Tell me you like it when I degrade you.”

‘Degrade’? Dan’s fucking asshole is tingling at the word, but he won’t internalise it. Never. But he does want to come. “I like it.”

“Good,” Phil breathes, kissing the shell of Dan’s ear.

“Can I come?” Dan asks. “Please?”

He’s so used to Phil’s rules by now that he doesn’t even consider the absolute pathetic nature of his own pleading.

“Yeah,” Phil murmurs. “Come for me, babe.”

That’s all it takes for Dan to soak his boxers and Phil’s hand, sharing a dirty and awkward and perfect sideways kiss. PJ’s absence is so loud, right now. Dan could almost cry, he’s that happy being used again. He feels Phil smirk against his lips and he moans, not even bothering to hide how this feels. Phil rewards him by turning him around and taking him in his arms, never pausing to as much as breathe between kisses.

That is, until Phil suddenly freezes in his arms. Dan’s jaw goes slack, brows furrowing as he searches Phil’s face for answers that are provided a second later by the sound of footsteps up the stairs of the apartment building. Dan knows who it is even before Phil removes himself from Dan and hastily buttons his flannel, adjusts himself in his jeans. Dan simply follows suit. He pulls his joggers back up over his ass and nods at the question in Phil’s eyes. Phil immediately rushes to the front door. 

Dan won’t linger. He goes back to his bedroom, cold enough to wrap his duvet tight around his shoulders.

He listens to the apologetic tone of PJ’s voice and Phil’s raised, confused questioning before they’re both quiet and Dan knows what’s happening. He’s heard more than enough, but he keeps listening. PJ and Phil talk quietly in the kitchen for a while before they go back to Phil’s bedroom.

Some time must have passed, because Dan definitely startles out of light sleep when his bedroom door is suddenly opened and Phil closes it behind himself, sitting down next to Dan on his bed.

Dan turns, confused and weak, looking up at his older flatmate who’s looking much more put together than he did when he got home earlier. He’s got no shirt on and a deep red hickey on the side of his throat that wasn’t there when Dan was sucking him off, but the look in Phil’s eyes tells Dan that Phil feels in control again, for whatever reason. Dan is about to speak, but Phil cradles his face in his hands and leans down, straddling him. Dan kisses him like it’s a lifeline, because he really has to make use of the time he gets with Phil when the time he gets is never up to himself. 

“We’re good, yeah?” Phil asks as he pulls back, searching Dan’s eyes.

Dan blinks. Phil doesn’t seem unsure in the slightest, despite asking. “What d’you mean?”

“Dan.” Phil doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t _not_ smile either.

Dan feels like an idiot. He feels young and stupid and presumptuous. Things happen too fast with Phil for himself to catch up with. There’s nothing to discuss and Dan doesn’t want to ask questions, but for once in his repressed state of mind he wishes he had some answers.

“Where’s PJ?” is all he can stomach actually asking.

“In my bedroom,” Phil says.

The room is dark but Dan feels like he’s got hypervision, trying to decipher every little muscle moving on Phil’s face as he speaks. He really doesn’t want to ask, but he’s going to ask.

“What are you doing here, then?”

“We never finished earlier,” Phil whispers. He sounds so matter-of-fact that Dan’s sure Phil knew which questions were coming.

Dan snorts. “I think we both finished, unless you’re scarily good at faking it.”

Phil shakes his head, and now he definitely smiles. “Not that. Just-”

He smooths his thumbs over Dan’s cheeks, and it clicks. Dan finally understands the assertive, comforting look in Phil’s eyes. They never finished, because what they do isn’t really about getting off. Even when it’s spontaneous, and weird, and abruptly ended by some drama in Phil’s life that Dan has no idea how to ask about. It’s about something other than sex. Despite how fucked up Phil’s being between all the relationships he’s juggling, Dan is something completely different to him.

Dan takes a shuddering breath. He’s not sure he’s supposed to feel comforted or used or neither or both. He pushes into Phil’s touches and kisses the part of Phil’s palms he can reach. Phil doesn’t have to ask this time, because Dan whispers a broken ‘thank you’ before Phil can tell him to.

“Good boy,” Phil whispers back.

He gets off the bed. He doesn’t so much as turn around once before he leaves. Dan takes a deep breath. His entire body is tingling. He’s hard as a rock. Right as he’s about to get a hand on himself, his phone buzzes.

 **Phil:** Touching yourself for me?

Dan hates him. Dan seriously hates him. But he pushes a hand beneath the covers and starts to stroke himself in spite of it, biting back a stupid grin.

 **Dan:** Yeah

 **Phil:** Good

Dan puts his phone away, imagining Phil’s powerful presence as he strokes himself to his second orgasm of the night, both courtesy of his stupid, confusing flatmate.

-

Phil’s behaviour with relationships or sexual partners was probably weird before. No, it definitely was. But as Dan has breakfast with Phil and PJ the morning after Phil presumably had sex with both of them, separately, he realises that this is a world of ‘odd’ on its own.

He doesn’t know if PJ knows. He doesn’t know if Phil and PJ are even in a relationship. They don’t typically display any affection other than cuddling on the sofa, and fucking every chance they get. Dan isn’t even sure why he’s sitting by the breakfast bar with his coffee, listening to Phil and PJ talking about friends of theirs that Dan has never met and filmmakers that Dan has never heard of, when he could be avoiding this situation in his bedroom. He could just not be here, but truth be told, part of him is intrigued.

He’s intrigued by Phil juggling all of this, and he’s intrigued by PJ smiling at Dan like he’s talking to him as well as Phil even if Dan has barely said more than two words for the past half hour. PJ has a snark and bite that’s funny, but he’s welcoming too. Weirdly, he seems to think it’s important that Dan’s included even if he’s just his fuck buddy’s flatmate. Or maybe PJ knows more than that. Honestly, the reason Dan sticks around so much is because maybe if he sticks around for long enough, some of this will start to make sense.

It doesn’t really work like that. Dan can sit in their cosy atmosphere for however long he fucking pleases and it still won’t answer his questions. He won’t ask, though. Asking would seem juvenile and stupid, just as juvenile and stupid as it would be to ask Phil about their own strange arrangement.

Nothing much changes after Dan got his fill. He presumes that was this time; he’ll wait for a few weeks or months and then Phil will take him in his hold like he belongs to him. Dan’s fine with that and all. It’s not like he’s counting down the weeks. Or days. Or anything like that.

Nothing much changes, but something does. It’s not Phil, or Dan. The strange nature of Phil and PJ’s relationship continues as it has for the past month. The _something_ that changes is PJ. Dan thinks so, anyway. Maybe PJ always treated him like this. Maybe PJ’s gaze always lingered for slightly too long, and maybe he always laughed this loudly at Dan’s jokes. Whatever the case, Dan starts to notice and when he does he can’t stop noticing.

Because when PJ lingers now, Dan lingers too. Any chuckles now abate with PJ holding Dan’s stare and Dan _blushes._ He blushes every time, and he always looks away first, because PJ is nerdy but cool and good looking and nice. He has this self assuredness to him, not unlike Phil. Maybe it’s because they’re both four years older than Dan and think it’s funny to play with younger guys. Phil always talks about how Dan is so horny and dumb and like any teenage boy, even if Dan isn’t even a teenager. The thing is, though, that Dan has started to accept that he doesn’t hate those mildly condescending looks on their faces whenever their age gap makes itself known in conversation. Some references that slip Dan by, or a joke that doesn’t land like it would have. It makes Dan flustered in a way that is oddly enjoyable.

Dan figures that the little flirts PJ sends his way are just that, really. He’s with Phil, or something, and Dan isn’t about to initiate anything beyond those lingering looks. Dan would have tried something for sure, had Phil not been in the picture. There’s no use thinking about why Phil’s role in all of it matters. It’s not like Phil bothers with anyone else’s interpersonal relationships like that.

But then, one night arrives. Dan’s getting a glass of water in the kitchen and he’s frozen to the spot as he catches PJ in his underwear, exiting Phil’s bedroom. PJ doesn’t even seem to notice him. Dan listens to him open the bathroom door but he stays unmoving the whole time, heart pounding, because the reality of Phil with PJ hasn’t fully hit him until now. He hasn’t seen PJ like _that_ ; hair all messy and skin all exposed, with no question as to why that’s the case. 

Dan is going to move again, and breathe again, as soon as PJ goes back to Phil’s room. Only, PJ doesn’t go back to Phil’s room. Once he’s finished in the bathroom he turns the other way in the hallway and walks straight to Dan in the kitchen as if he already knew Dan was there.

“Uh, hi,” Dan says. Something about PJ being a real, smiling person kind of reminds him how to be a human. “You need anything?”

PJ comes closer. Dan is definitely not looking down. He’s not gonna so much as glance because one glance is all it’ll take for his mind to start running, imagining, wanting. Dan is doing a good job convincing himself that’s not what’s happening right now.

“Just thirsty,” PJ says once he’s settled for leaning against the counter, very unnecessarily close to where Dan is standing by the sink with a half empty glass of water in his hand.

“Alright,” Dan stalls, reaching for the cupboard door.

He has no time to react before PJ’s grabbed the glass from his hand and downed the remaining water. Dan’s arm falls to his side as he stares in perfect awe.

“We have clean glasses, you know,” Dan settles for saying, an unsure half smirk on his face.

PJ grins. “Not like it matters. We both know where our mouths have been.”

A chill goes down Dan’s spine. He feels caught out, even if what he and Phil have done isn’t exactly a secret. Maybe, when PJ and Phil are alone, they ask each other things. Maybe they talk about stuff like it’s not weird. Whatever the case, PJ isn’t saying this in a challenging, upset way. Well, maybe it is challenging. Dan has been on the other end of a stare like this before, and it only ever means one thing.

Dan doesn’t know if it’s a challenge he’s supposed to take on, right now. He has no fucking idea what Phil wants with him. Dan hasn’t exactly stopped himself from getting it on with other people since their little thing started, but something about it being in their shared kitchen with Phil’s ‘friend’ makes him consider whether Phil would be okay with it.

PJ takes one step closer. Dan swallows. He’s got this chance to have his way with a hot guy that has been making his heart pound for the past week. Their surroundings seem to matter less when PJ looks so sure. He grabs Dan by the waist and waits until Dan is the one to lean in before they finally kiss. It’s hard, and dirty, and fucking perfect. But Dan pulls back all the same, flustered and embarrassed like they both don’t want this just as much.

“What are you doing?” It’s a stupid question. It’s such a stupid question. Whenever Dan tries to think when he’s in a situation like this all his mind can really conjure are ghosts of thoughts he would’ve had when his blood isn’t rushing to one particular place.

PJ grins at him but loosens his grip.

“I mean,” Dan says, suddenly desperate to be taken hold of like that again. “Are you-is this-”

PJ is much more patient than Phil is. He doesn’t interject or laugh at him or anything.

“Is this okay?” Dan finally feels brave enough to ask.

“With who?” PJ asks. “Do you not want to?”

“Of course I want to,” Dan almost spits out. “I meant Phil.”

Saying his name in this context feels even more wrong, but it just makes Dan’s dumbass dick harder.

“I hadn’t thought to ask,” PJ says. “Should I?”

If Phil had been the one to say it, Dan would’ve heard it as a tease. Coming from PJ, it sounds like a real question. Dan really don’t know how to fucking think. Especially not when PJ starts to lean back in and brush his lips against Dan’s jaw.

“No,” Dan says. Suddenly his mind is clear but it’s only because he has one goal in mind, and that is to get this guy under him as soon as possible. “Sorry. I don’t know. Just-”

Dan turns his head just slightly and PJ catches him in an awkward kiss that turns hot as they fumble their arms around each other, excited and horny and stupid but not like Dan gets with other guys. It doesn’t ruin the mood. Fuck, Dan wants him. He wants _this._ For a time after he’s recently been with Phil it gets like this, like this need that has to be filled and once something happens he gets ahead of himself with nerves and excitement. Dan knows this but he can’t stop. He can’t stop himself from grabbing with both hands, fully aware that he’ll lose more than he gains by being overeager.

PJ doesn’t pull away, though. He doesn’t slow it down like Phil can, but he somehow matches Dan’s pace, inconsistent as it is. Wherever this may be leading, Dan is happy to follow along. He follows along when PJ grabs his wrist and leads him to the lounge. He sits down and lets PJ straddle his lap, wrap his arms around his neck, grind down against his hard-on.

Dan runs his hands down PJ’s back, stopping at his narrow hips to hook his thumbs over the waistband of his boxer shorts. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gasp is heard from PJ then, so quiet and in no way alarming, but it’s genuine enough for Dan to get pulled out of the moment just slightly. They’re here and they’re doing this. Dan is fully clothed in his t-shirt and jogging bottoms, contrary to PJ who might as well be naked. Really, PJ is working with Dan’s passivity, and that thought only confuses Dan right now. He should be doing more.

Those are the ideas that make Dan finally participate in the moment. He pushes PJ’s side and PJ goes along with it. He doesn’t talk and he doesn’t make many sounds. He makes no demands, just as happy to lead as he is to follow. Dan isn’t sure what that means. He doesn’t know what his role is supposed to be here. He’s been getting used to the ease with which Phil establishes his dominance. Dan’s gotten used to submitting. He craves it, actually, more so than anything else that exists in his and Phil’s strange dynamic. Everything about what they have going on is confusing, except for that part. As much as Dan hated to admit it at first, he truly wants that the most.

Somehow, Dan had expected the same thing to happen with PJ. Even as tonight’s progressed completely differently to what Dan had thought, those expectations snuck up on him and it isn’t until now, with this guy beneath him on the sofa, so perfectly pliant for any of his wishes, that he realises that that kind of thing isn’t really on the table here. If Dan wanted them to be, he could probably ask. But he won’t. Just because he’s internalised it now that doesn’t mean he’s ready to vocalise it. So he’ll work this out like he works his other hookups out. He’ll stumble blindly in the dark until he finds his footing in the rhythm with which PJ thrusts up against him. He’ll take off his shirt just to feel the hot skin of their chests come together, he’ll run his hands through PJ’s chest hair because god fucking damnit is he turned on by its very existence.

Dan won’t ask for everything, but once the head of PJ’s cock lies hard on his stomach, slipping out from his underwear as Dan moves his hand along the underside, that one glance he deprived himself of earlier is all it takes for him to know exactly what he wants.

“Can I suck your dick?” Dan asks against PJ’s neck, clumsy and horny and probably embarrassing.

“Ah,” PJ groans, “yeah.”

Dan sits up. PJ looks confused at first, as though he’s not really sure where this is going or how, and during that moment Dan gets to look at the slick head of his cock and those flushed dark pink nipples that are almost covered by the long, thick, dark hair on his chest. Like this, PJ looks almost like a different person. He’s so put together and stylish at other times but now he’s unravelled, messy and hard and hot. He’s so much _man_ in the same way Phil is, in a way that Dan definitely hasn’t grown into yet. Maybe he never will. Dan is weirdly okay with that, though. It’s not as much about comparison in this case as it is about pure attraction; something he so badly wants.

PJ is rubbing Dan through his joggers once he’s sat up to wait him out. It feels like actual bliss at this point. Dan breathes in all of those masculine scents until they make him go dizzy.

“How do you want me?” PJ murmurs into Dan’s ear, giving a reassuring squeeze to one of Dan’s shoulders.

“I want to be on my knees on the floor while you sit on the couch.”

PJ pauses. Dan surprises himself, really, with the boldness of his suggestion. 

“Fuck yeah,” PJ doesn’t wait long to finally breathe, immediately positioning himself with his legs spread wide, feet planted firmly on the floor.

Dan’s heart races as he sinks to his knees. It feels right to look up at PJ like this. Being subjected to that look in his eye, that one that some people get when Dan gets to this position, the one that almost verges into something like a power trip. It’s exactly what Dan wants. Those are the boundaries that Dan wants to push. Subconsciously, even before Phil, Dan thinks he’s had a tendency towards this during sex. No matter if he’s been with a guy or a girl, the act of submitting comes naturally to him.

PJ’s finally taken off his underwear. Dan wastes no time before he starts licking his cock. Fist wrapped around the base as he massages PJ’s balls. The hair feels almost scratchy against his palm, turning Dan on even more. He doesn’t think PJ’s ever even considered shaving anywhere. If Dan were bolder, he’d push his nose down against any hair he could find to breathe in his scent.

Dan kisses the tip of PJ’s cock. He can’t look at his face right now, it’s too intimate and too exposing, but he wishes he could. He takes PJ’s cock in his mouth, massaging the underside with his tongue as he sinks down far enough to kiss his own fist. It’s not difficult to take PJ’s size but he knows that when he does stuff like this, that ‘verging on a power trip’ feeling between him and the person he’s fucking gets that much stronger.

Despite that, Dan only wants more. ‘Greedy,’ Phil would call it, followed by one of his signature smirks. ‘Desperate. Pathetic.’ Dan exhales hard and searches for PJ’s hand. There are a lot of things Dan feels like he can’t do or ask out of shyness, but he can grab PJ’s wrist and lead his hand towards the back of his own neck. He can cover PJ’s hand with his own, making him take a firm hold of him, to non verbally ask him to stake a claim over him. PJ seems to get it immediately. He doesn’t hold on as tightly as Dan made him, but he keeps his hand there. He plays with the hair at the nape of his neck. It makes Dan feel precious and like he’s an object at the same time.

Dan’s gotten into a groove, working PJ’s cock with his mouth and hand but never taking it as far as making PJ come. He doesn’t want to make him come yet. Dan wants to simply be this, this subordinate vehicle taking PJ to pleasure, for as long as he’s allowed to be.

PJ seems happy either way. His hand has moved to the back of Dan’s head now, gently pushing him down. He doesn’t do it for any other reason than because Dan has made it clear that he wants that, Dan can tell. It’s so stupidly hot and demeaning. Dan kind of wishes PJ would make fun of him for it. That won’t happen right now, PJ probably wouldn’t want to, and Dan isn’t far enough below the surface to try and make it happen.

Dan isn’t exactly sure what ‘the surface’ really is. He just knows that he’s become more and more comfortable slipping under it, making him that much more desperate and pathetic. Phil seems to have some control over that. It never happens unless he’s involved.

A sudden gasp from PJ makes Dan pause. He really doesn’t want him to come yet. Dan keeps his eyes closed and his head filled with _Phil_ to try to will himself to reach that delicious headspace he’s seeking by doing this. It doesn’t mean anything other than that Phil knows how to get him there. Really, it doesn’t.

“Oh,” PJ gets out. He’s not losing control of himself, but suddenly he’s much more verbal than he’s been this whole time. “Fuck, it feels good.”

Dan’s buzzing, making even more of an effort as the praise washes over his brain and muddles his sense of self. It’s closer to under the surface than he’s been with anyone other than Phil. He loves it. He fucking loves feeling like this.

PJ keeps encouraging him with little words or moans, starting to buck his hips. Dan meets his movements as he holds on to PJ’s hips and bobs his head. His mouth is so wet and so full he’d be drooling if he didn’t try to swallow it down. He’d probably be drooling with Phil.

The sound of another voice stops it all for a second. A hum that doesn’t belong to PJ, followed by the unmistakable sound of kissing. Dan stutters in his movements. 

Once the initial shock passes, he can tell that it’s Phil. Dan feels like he’s about to freeze and pull off and push himself into a strange panic, but he forces himself not to. He forces himself to keep pleasuring PJ despite this unexpected turn, because doing so finally pushes him below the surface. Had he not been getting as comfortable with Phil as he has been lately, he wouldn’t have known what the fuck to do at that crossroad. But right now, he knows. He knows what Phil would tell him to do. He knows he would have obeyed. He pushes a hand between his own thighs and squeezes as the feeling rolls over him again and again, mind spinning, lips tingling.

Dan feels it as Phil sits down beside PJ on the couch. Some part of him pushes up against the hand Dan has on PJ’s hip. Dan’s stomach flutters with poorly contained excitement.

“He’s good, isn’t he?” Dan hears Phil whisper. 

Another kiss.

“Mmh,” PJ moans. “Really good.”

They can’t not notice how hard Dan shudders at that. But even so, they ignore him. They kiss, and the back of Phil’s hand brushes Dan’s sweaty forehead before he grabs some part of PJ and that-

That, apparently, makes Phil decide it’s time to put an end to whatever he was doing and fully grasp Dan’s hair. Dan completely stops. His jaw goes slack and PJ’s dick slips out of his mouth. Phil isn’t holding on hard, but Dan’s body is going limp, reacting as if Phil could hold him up just by the faint pressure against his scalp.

“Having fun?” Phil asks.

Dan swallows. His chin is wet. He must have started drooling at some point but he didn’t even notice.

“Look at me.”

Dan blinks his eyes open. Phil is naked. PJ is stroking his cock. Phil has an arm wrapped around PJ’s shoulders, and PJ’s face is pushed against the crook of his neck. Dan feels a twinge of jealousy that abates quickly because Phil is holding his gaze like no one else is there. Dan is far enough below the surface to accept everything that’s happening right now. There’s no looming threat of being pulled out of it, nothing for Dan to feel afraid of.

“God, you’re really into it,” Phil sighs. He moves his palm to cup Dan’s jaw, tilting his head up. Dan can’t stop the smile that spreads on his face. In another situation, Dan would be thinking himself stupid with excuses to why Phil has nothing to do with the way he’s feeling right now. But there’s no way Dan’s making excuses now. He’s enjoying himself too much.

“Peej,” Phil says, shrugging his shoulder to nudge PJ to pull away. “Look at him.”

PJ looks down, straight into Dan’s eyes, and then the tension really flares. Suddenly, it feels more real and Dan feels more embarrassed, and even more turned on because of it.

PJ smiles faintly and reaches down to cup the other side of Dan’s face. He’s still stroking Phil’s cock with the other. That’s when Dan notices the faint scent of fruit flavoured lube. Phil actually brought lube. Dan doesn’t know how long he didn’t notice Phil for, but it must’ve been longer than Dan thought.

“Isn’t he cute?” Phil says.

He’s still staring straight into Dan’s eyes, never wavering. He wouldn’t waver. Phil is solid, sure, with no qualms about putting Dan in this position because he already knew that Dan would like it. 

“Adorable,” PJ agrees, voice weak.

It’s PJ, out of the three of them, that actually wavers. For a split second, when Dan looks at him, PJ looks more amused than anything. Amused and incredulous and like he actually thinks that this situation is as odd as it is. Dan’s the one that’s supposed to think it’s odd, right? Not PJ. That’s not PJ’s role, right? That small flare of jealousy feels stronger this time, and it doesn’t fully leave. It doesn’t make any of this less hot, but Dan realises what the real challenge he’s being faced with right now is. As if to rub it in, Phil and PJ kiss right in front of his eyes.

“Are you okay, Dan?” Phil asks once PJ pulls away. He holds PJ’s eye for a second, lingering, before he settles to look down at him.

Phil is fucking amused, too. Dan can hear that in his voice. This is funny to him, but the question is serious all the same. Whenever Phil asks something like that, it’s because he wants a proper answer.

“Yeah,” Dan says and clears his throat. He pushes against Phil’s hand. Even if Phil can take anyone he wants, Dan’s gonna make it clear who he belongs to. 

_… Belongs to._ Dan cringes internally.

“This okay?” Phil asks, slipping his thumb between Dan’s lips. Apparently, Dan’s answer wasn’t adequate. He has to prompt further. Some self righteousness appears inside of Dan, one that urges himself to be as fucking adequate as he goddamn can.

“Mhm,” Dan says around Phil’s thumb, eyelids drooping. 

He’s still loopy, but inside he’s starting to get antsy, unsure. The room feels so quiet and PJ’s presence is so strong, so out of the ordinary. Dan is ready to submit and to be aware that he’s submitting but PJ being here puts it to a test Dan was completely unprepared for.

“Come here,” Phil says.

He pulls Dan closer by the back of his neck. Dan scoots to sit between Phil’s legs instead. His cock is red and hard in PJ’s slick hand. He’s not hairless, but he’s trimmed. It’s good enough for Dan, who leans forward to nudge Phil’s balls with his nose, finally breathing in because that’s what he’s been reduced to.

Phil’s more quiet than he usually is. Dan doesn’t think Phil would’ve allowed him to do this without asking if PJ wasn’t here. But PJ’s presence is strong, and it must be affecting Phil’s ability to be dominant as well. Dan can see that just as Phil’s eyes flick to PJ’s, and they share some secret smile that Dan can’t quite decipher. Dan closes his eyes and sucks one of Phil’s balls into his mouth. Phil moans. PJ curses quietly to himself.

No matter how little control Dan had over this all happening, some kind of balance gets restored at that. He keeps his eyes closed as Phil tilts Dan’s chin up and PJ feeds Phil’s cock between his lips. Phil is thicker, more familiar, wetter. Dan plays with Phil’s balls as he sucks the cockhead softly.

“That’s a good boy,” Phil says.

Dan opens his eyes. He can look at Phil while he’s sucking him off, that’s for sure. And he can be subjected to that fucking power trip and not feel embarrassed in a bad way. Rather, Dan has to cup himself harder through his joggers as a new wave crashes over him. There’s that hunger, that power, but paired next to genuine affection. It feels so loud and so real but it pushes Dan back below. He’s not sure when he got back up above the surface, but now he’s tucked safely beneath it again. Both Phil and PJ play with Dan’s hair as Dan starts to bob his head. Dan looks between them, at how openly they’re staring at him like he’s prey. Dan breathes out through his nose.

“Yeah,” Phil groans. “You like it. You like taking two cocks at once.”

Dan’s eyes fall shut. He shivers, humming around Phil’s cock. He does like it. He likes it so much.

PJ nudges Dan’s shoulder. Dan immediately gives him his hand. He looks at them clasped together as PJ leads Dan’s hand towards his cock. Dan doesn’t hesitate stroking it in time with bobbing his mouth up and down Phil’s dick. They’re both so hard. They’re both so hard for _Dan._

PJ’s cock is slicker now. He must have lubed up at some point. And PJ is straining to keep control now, as he keeps himself from thrusting erratically into Dan’s hold at every other stroke. Dan kisses the side of Phil’s cock and slows down on PJ. Phil and PJ are practically ignoring him now. 

Phil’s brushing through Dan’s hair with his fingers and PJ keeps a hold of Dan’s forearm, but they’re not looking at him. Phil is playing with PJ’s hair too, pulling him in for kiss after kiss, each one wetter than the next. Dan finds himself just watching, idly playing with both of their cocks, biting down on his bottom lip as that buzz underneath his skin gets stronger. They’re licking into each other’s mouths, lost in it. Well, PJ is. Phil is kissing PJ just as passionately as he was but he still has half the mind to tug harder at Dan’s hair, pulling his mouth onto his dick again. He’s not even looking at him. Dan has never felt so utterly used. It makes him want to come on the spot.

He doesn’t get to. Both of Dan’s hands are busy. PJ looks down at him. He must be getting more into it. He’s not hesitating anymore. PJ grabs Dan’s hair and pulls him onto his cock with just as much certainty as Phil did. Dan has to shift to sit between them instead of between Phil’s legs, but they shift too and they slot into a position that allows Dan to lick both of their cockheads at the same time.

It’s pornographic. He’s got two guys pulling him back and forth between their cocks, pushing them against the inside of his cheek just to create that sinful popping noise when they pull out. They’re definitely looking at him now, mesmerised, as Dan lets his mouth be used.

“Such a whore,” Phil says. “Look at that.”

Dan moans. He’s not even using his hands anymore. His hands are in his lap, not touching himself because his mouth is never empty long enough for him to have time to ask if he’s allowed. PJ chuckles, lightly slapping Dan’s cheek with his cock as Phil gently fucks his mouth. It’s so fucking demeaning. And perfect.

“Isn’t he a good slut?” Phil asks. He allows Dan to pull away and swallow, regain some of his breath.

“Yeah,” PJ says. 

They’re both touching his face and hair with no restriction, like they have to show who’s in control somehow even when he’s not getting his face fucked. PJ pushes two fingers into Dan’s mouth. Dan catches it when he shoots Phil a quick glance, a microsecond of hesitation that Phil nods to.

“You can say whatever you want,” Phil says to PJ. “He fucking loves it.”

Dan almost wants to argue, no matter how true it is. Phil notices. He notices, and he smirks, looking well pleased with himself. Dan scrunches his nose in some half hearted attempt at keeping his dignity.

“I think he wants us to come on his tits,” Phil says, looking directly at Dan. PJ laughs. “Don’t you, slut?”

PJ pulls his fingers out of Dan’s mouth. Phil slaps his cock against Dan’s lips.

“Yeah,” Dan says. He imagines them unloading onto him at the same time, their hot cum mixing together, dripping down to his stomach, marking him. It makes him fucking shudder. “Fuck. Please.”

“What was that?” Phil asks. He’s stroking himself now, with intention. PJ matches his pace. They push their cockheads against him, between his lips, at every other turn.

Dan pulls away for long enough to respond. “Please come on me.”

He’s actually said the words. Dan has sunken so hard now, but he’s not getting lost. Phil is here and he’s guiding him like no one else can, even as his legs are spasming in preparation for his oncoming orgasm.

“Fuck,” Phil moans.

PJ’s quiet, but he comes first. He lets out a loud breath, followed by a weak moan as Dan pushes his chest up to catch his cum. It gets on one of his nipples, on his chin, and probably in his hair. It’s hot and sticky, distracting Dan enough for Phil’s orgasm to come as a surprise. He covers Dan’s chest in it, and once he’s done he pushes his cock back inside his mouth, only to pull out and come some more.

“Look at you,” Phil says. His eyes are so dark. “Look at all that cum on your little tits.”

He reaches out and cups Dan’s flat chest like there’s something there. Dan tilts his head back. He’s so hard he could break the fabric on his pyjamas. Phil keeps rubbing their loads into his skin, and then there are two more hands on him, grabbing around his throat and then down to pinch his nipples and play with the cum that feels like it’s everywhere right now, this musky scent paired with that synthetic fruity lube. Phil’s hands are gone for a moment, but when they return they’re dripping with it, lubing Dan’s little tits up, grabbing, before he beckons him by gently slapping his cheek. Dan looks up at Phil’s reassuring smile as he’s pulled onto the couch. He straddles them both, one knee between each sets of legs. Phil kisses him hard. Dan melts. Somehow in the process of shifting into position, Dan’s joggers come off.

He wraps his arms around Phil’s neck and for a second he feels so unironically grateful. It grows through him. PJ begins to wank Dan’s cock. Dan moans with no restraint now. Phil keeps kissing him, whispering soft encouragements into his ear. Calling him a good boy, telling him he’s the best fuck, that his mouth was made for sucking cock.

Phil takes Dan’s dick in hand. He and PJ wank him together like something out of one of Dan’s wet dreams. 

Phil pushes Dan to kiss PJ and they do, awkwardly like before but then Phil joins in and it becomes perfect. It feels like forever, this pleasure loud in the quiet of the room, only broken by the smacking kissing sounds and wet strokes of Dan’s desperate cock.

“Come for us,” Phil says, playing with Dan’s cockhead as PJ strokes him turturously slowly.

“Can I?” Dan pulls away from PJ’s kiss to ask. 

He doesn’t even think about it until he hears the faintest snort from PJ. Phil looks _proud,_ though. Like he thinks Dan is much more important than just some younger dude he’s getting his rocks off playing with every now and then.

“Say please,” Phil says. He’s serious now, completely ignoring whatever reaction PJ is having.

Dan can ignore PJ now, too. Phil makes that so easy. PJ strokes Dan faster, making his muscles go rigid with the feeling approaching.

“Please,” Dan splutters. It’s so undignified and embarrassing. 

Phil slaps his ass and laughs in his face. “Fuck yeah. You can come now, slut.”

He nudges his fingers between Dan’s ass cheeks, just faintly touching the rim, and Dan comes like he’s been getting fucked into the mattress for hours. It gets on PJ’s thigh and Phil’s stomach. It feels like it goes on for so _long_.

When it’s over, Dan is exhausted both physically and emotionally. He slumps into Phil’s arms and then PJ is gone, only to come back with a towel they all use to clean up. Dan doesn’t leave Phil’s embrace. PJ doesn’t get back on the couch with them. He puts on his underwear and starts Mario Kart on the TV while Phil holds Dan close, brushing kisses against his forehead.

“What do we say?” Phil whispers.

Dan actually giggles. PJ glances their way. Dan is too blissed out to care about looking as young and stupid and happy as he feels. He kisses Phil straight on the lips. Phil laughs against his mouth.

“Thank you,” Dan says as he pulls away. Phil’s smile fades.

Dan has to look away from the look that’s about to be in his eyes. Some of the excitement is starting to fade and when it does, he doesn’t want to see that affection. It gets too confusing. Instead, he rests his cheek against Phil’s chest and watches PJ pick the absolutely wrong wheels for his car. Phil pulls a blanket over them both. Dan falls asleep to the sound of PJ and Phil having a way too normal conversation for what just happened as the Rainbow Road music plays in the background.

-

Dan has the faintest memory of being woken up and made to stumble into a bed at some point in the middle of the night. Opening his eyes the next morning, he knows he’s not where he usually is. He’s not in his own cramped bed. He’s in Phil’s. His arms are wrapped around _Phil,_ not PJ. Dan knows what Phil feels like in his arms.

“Morning,” Phil says.

Dan opens his eyes and hooks his chin over Phil’s shoulder. Phil’s looking at twitter on his phone. PJ definitely isn’t here. It’s too early for talking, or wondering, or asking. Dan hums some kind of ‘good morning’ in response and settles for watching the cute animal videos that seem to clog Phil’s entire timeline. This guy never fails to impress him, really. Dan’s not sure what kind of accounts he was expecting Phil to follow, but it definitely wasn’t a thousand different variations of ‘cute animal funny videos’.

As with anything new Dan learns about Phil, it puts him at ease. He feels safe to giggle with Phil for an hour, in this safe nest of blankets that keeps Dan from thinking.

Eventually Phil stirs, putting his phone down on the mattress. Dan rolls off of him and stretches hard, all the way to his toes. When he’s done he realises that Phil is looking at him. Not with a smirk on his face, or any little jab. He’s just looking at him like Dan’s not his younger stupid flatmate that begged him and his friend to come on his chest last night.

Fuck. That really happened.

“Where’s PJ?” Dan finds it in himself to ask.

“Oh,” Phil says. “He went home.”

“Oh,” Dan echoes him.

Phil grins. “Disappointed?”

Dan’s face goes red as he shakes his head and splutters something incoherent. Phil laughs, mussing his hand into Dan’s bedhead. There’s that ‘older brother flatmate’ energy that Dan hates, and loves, and fuck he’s conflicted. He slaps at Phil’s hands and Phil slaps back.

“Was that all good, though?” Phil asks once they’ve stopped their pathetic little slap fight. “Last night?”

“Um, yeah,” Dan says.

Phil is sitting at the edge of the bed, looking more thoughtful than Dan thinks the situation really warrants. “It wasn’t really how I thought it’d go down, but it was hot.”

Dan frowns. “What?”

Phil takes one look at him and laughs, tongue poking out between his teeth. It’s so contagious Dan has to giggle.

“What d’you mean ‘thought’?” Dan presses. “You thought about it?”

Phil settles down, but he just smiles rather than responding. Dan slaps his arm.

“You talked about it?” Dan asks. “You and PJ?”

“Come on.” Phil rolls his eyes and grabs Dan’s hand. 

Dan’s hand goes limp but Phil doesn’t let go. Dan joins him at the end of the bed and the laughter dies down. Dan’s heart is in his throat. Phil isn’t holding his hand tightly. He’s just holding it. He’s stroking his thumb down the back of it. When Dan looks into his eyes everything Dan wants to avoid is clear in Phil’s expression.

“You know you can always ask,” Phil says.

Dan swallows hard. “Ask what?”

Phil shrugs. “Anything. About PJ, or me, or whatever.”

Dan frowns, confused.

“You can ask me for sex,” Phil clarifies. Dan doesn’t know why he blushes, but he does. Phil grins. “I think we have way too much fun together for it to only be me asking. Don’t you think?”

Dan is used to retorts and dumb comments. He can’t say any of that, though. All he can do is try to keep smiling, nodding as his insides somehow soar and hurt at the same time. He has no reason to be hurting, for fuck sake. Before Dan has time to say anything, Phil kisses him.

“Good boy,” Phil whispers. Dan’s heart clenches. “I’m gonna shower.”

“Okay,” Dan says.

Phil gets up. Dan waits until he leaves before he gets back up in bed under the covers. He’d like some more sleep in a bed that smells like Phil and was made for people taller than 5’6’’. Dan is just getting comfortable when Phil’s phone buzzes against his arm.

He would never look at Phil’s phone without Phil knowing. He wouldn’t so much as glance at it if it wasn’t by mistake. But Dan does glance, and the text message Phil received was from PJ, saying something Dan didn’t want to read.

 **PJ:** You can’t tell me he doesn’t have it bad for you, though.

 **PJ:** Be careful is all I’m saying

 **PJ:** But yeah he’s good, he’s so hot. Try to keep him around, idiot. LOL

Dan didn’t read that. He definitely didn’t. He doesn’t _care._

It’s like Phil’s phone burns now. Dan puts it on the night stand and gets up, heart racing. Suddenly Phil’s bed doesn’t look as appealing. Dan is going to go to his own room and mentally unread that text message, and lose any stupid hope his brain secretly conjured. Because that must be what’s crushing him right now. Hope. Stupid fucking hope.

Dan gets under his own covers. At least it’s familiar. He’s not thinking about PJ, or Phil, but he probably will take Phil up on that offer to ask for sex later. Phil’s gonna keep him around, as PJ put it in the text message Dan definitely did not read. All Dan really has to do is to try not to fuck up, and maybe Phil will still want him.

Something like that, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! | [tumblr post](https://intoapuddle.tumblr.com/post/626015682326331392/flatmates-part-iii-word-count-this-chapter-10k)


	4. Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh my god they were flatmates... and sometimes, being a drooling idiot for your fuckboy flatmate is hard in more than just a horny way :/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big big happy birth to jane!!! and happy one year of flatmates ^-^!

Dan isn’t sure exactly what turn of events got him here. He’s on his back on top of a tiny bed in a university house share, naked and drunk and spreading his legs for the bloke on top of him. 

Dan doesn’t have friends. He doesn’t go to parties. But the last couple weeks spent scrambling together an essay with a shattering brain ended up making him desperate to look for something outside of his comfort zone. He really just wants to focus on something different. If that something ends up creating new problems for himself by ruining his reputation, that’s fine, really.

This guy’s petite. His name is Josh, and he’s physically smaller than anyone Dan’s ever been with before. But damn, he fucks good. And he isn’t restrained by his physical shape at all. The moment they got naked in bed together, Josh asked Dan to choose from three different sizes of dildos he apparently keeps in his bedside drawer.

“We don’t need to use them,” Dan had said, face hot as he played with the smallest one: a black, ribbed thing with a thick base and three settings for vibrations. Josh had been preoccupied stroking Dan’s cock and kissing his neck, but Dan speaking made him pause.

“You look like you really want to get fucked, though,” Josh had grinned, his messy fringe falling into his eyes as he smiled adorably.

“Maybe I look like someone _you_ want to fuck,” Dan had felt brave enough to shoot back, running on three shots of tequila and an unspecified amount of shitty beer.

Josh had taken the toy out of his hand and settled it into a harness he fitted around his hips. He looked so casual and used to it. Dan’s mouth was already salivating looking at the dark hair peeking out behind the toy.

“And what if you do?” Josh had challenged, getting on top of Dan. “But if you really don’t want to do that you should at least suck it off.”

Dan hadn’t even answered before he took the cock in his hand, jerking it as he spread his legs. “You can fuck me if you let me prep in the bathroom first.”

“So I was right,” Josh had chuckled.

“Shut up,” Dan had groaned, quickly grabbing the lube, and scampered off into the bathroom next to Josh’s bedroom.

Dan’s very glad he agreed to it now. They’ve been fucking for five minutes, but he’s about ready to come already. He squeezes Josh’s firm ass, getting him deeper, as Josh breathes hard into his neck.

“Should’ve went with the bigger one,” Josh manages to tease despite the stutter of his hips.

Dan moans, canting his ass up to meet Josh’s thrusts. Josh shudders, and then Dan comes.

Dan doesn’t know what to expect after. What he’s really meant to say, or where he’s allowed to touch. But Josh doesn’t seem to give a fuck. He gets the cock in Dan’s mouth, grabbing Dan’s hand to touch just below it. 

“Come on,” Josh urges him, running Dan’s fingers over the slick folds.

Dan sucks the toy slowly while looking up at him. He’s reminded of Phil’s urgency for a second. Josh might be taking control for a different reason to Phil, but it’s still that: control, a place for Dan to be told what to do with no questions asked. Nothing in the world makes him feel sluttier or hornier than that kind of desperation.

Dan moans around the cock as he flicks the nub right below it, teasing the opening. Josh doesn’t take long to come, shaking and moaning against Dan’s hand and thrusting deep into Dan’s mouth.

“Fuck,” Josh whispers once he’s settled, watching Dan suck the wetness off his own fingers.

Dan swallows, grinning. Josh settles next to him, taking off the harness. Dan watches him rub himself slowly, at his actual dick that’s so thick and hard and sexy.

“Wanna go again?” Dan asks, still stupidly brave and horny.

Josh doesn’t answer at first. He takes Dan’s hand back to replace his own between his legs, rubbing up against it as he kisses Dan hard. “Yeah, but this time you should fuck me.”

Dan doesn’t need to be asked twice.

-

Josh is one of the best fucks Dan’s had at uni, easy. He won’t go back, though. As soon as he gets home that same night, he feels those tiny pieces of his brain that were still hanging on to some sanity splinter off. He drops down on the couch without so much as taking his shoes off.

He wakes up just as he’s falling asleep by the feeling of someone tugging at his feet. Dan kicks and struggles and whines.

“Fuck off,” he mutters into a sofa cushion. He feels like shit. He doesn’t really like company when he’s trying to shut his brain off.

“Okay, I guess you don’t need help then,” Phil says, playfully slapping Dan’s ass. 

It’s the faintest thing, but Dan hadn’t been fucked in a long time before Josh. So he half-winces, half-pushes into the sensation, feeling stupidly embarrassed but too drunk to care.

Phil squeezes one cheek gently. Weirdly silent, before retrieving his hand and pulling Dan’s shoes off.

“Come on,” Phil says. Quiet, yet stern. “Let’s get your jeans off and get you into bed.”

Dan whines. He can’t believe Phil’s gonna squeeze his ass like that and then not mention anything about it. Like, he won’t even call Dan a slut, or easy, or _anything?_

“Up you get,” Phil insists, standing beside the couch and taking a firm hold of Dan’s sides. Dan helps just the tiniest bit, but mostly it’s Phil that eventually gets him on his feet. He leads Dan to his bed, not Phil’s, and undoes his belt buckle. He’s all business, not giving Dan so much as a smirk as he kneels while Dan sits on the bed, pulling his jeans down and off. He doesn’t even mention the fact that Dan’s hard.

Even though Dan’s brain is off the radar, scattered somewhere else, he still feels stupidly needy and brave enough to voice it, for once.

“Can I sleep in your bed?” he asks. His voice sounds smaller than he expected, and honestly, that’s more embarrassing than anything else about this situation.

Phil looks into his eyes, the weird tense expression on his face finally softening slightly.

“With you,” Dan elaborates. He’s not forgetting the time not that long ago when he asked to sleep in Phil’s bed and Phil, thinking he’s so fucking funny, went to sleep in Dan’s bed just because Dan hadn’t been ‘specific enough’. “Please?”

Finally, Phil smiles. “Yeah. As long as you don’t sick on me.”

“I won’t,” Dan practically barks, anger flaring. Then he laughs at himself. Fuck, he’s drunk.

Phil isn’t normally patient, but tonight he is. He doesn’t say anything when Dan wraps himself around his side like a koala, his hard dick poking insistently against his side. They’re more comfortable around each other now. Ever since they fooled around with PJ together, and Phil told Dan he could ask for what he wants, their relationship has gone from weirdly tense to weirdly comfortable. They don’t have sex all the time, but they definitely hang out more and cuddle a lot.

Dan doesn’t think about how Phil hasn’t been bringing home any other guys for a while. Dan’s allowed to ask for sex, yeah. And sometimes he wants to know what the fuck is going on with his weird flatmate. But when it comes to that, the _’other guys’_ part of the deal, Dan doesn’t think he wants to hear Phil’s lie, much less the truth.

Even though Dan is tired and probably dissociating, he keeps rubbing against Phil. Phil’s being more patient than usual, but then he snaps.

He wriggles out of Dan’s hold and grabs Dan’s chin hard. Dan gulps, feeling his stupid fucking dick get even more interested as he grins at Phil’s annoyed frown.

“You don’t get to get off on me right now,” Phil says. He looks actually serious about it. Dan’s smile falters slightly. “Okay? Don’t touch me.”

Phil lets go of Dan and rolls over to the other side of the bed. Dan covers his face with his hands as the sinking feeling inside becomes endless. He’s spiralling, and he feels fucking stupid about spiralling when he knows he was pushing boundaries and being annoying to get a reaction. It’s just that he didn’t expect Phil to get angry.

A couple minutes pass, and then Phil’s rolled back into Dan’s space. He kisses Dan’s cheek gently as he wraps his arms around his chest, nuzzling his nose against the side of his neck. Dan’s heart pounds. He’s so fucking confused.

“I’m sorry,” Phil says. “I’m just in a bad mood but I know you’re drunk. So. I’m fucking sorry.”

Dan lets out some kind of sob. Phil shushes him, kisses him on the cheek again, holding on tighter.

“Just go to sleep,” Phil whispers. “Yeah? You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Dan nods, shivering from the cold of the faint traces of tears down his own cheeks, as he cuddles against Phil’s side and lets him comfort him to sleep.

-

The thing is, despite the apology, Phil doesn’t stop snapping over the smallest things. He yells at Dan when he finds crumbs on the countertops. He makes those annoying loud sighs whenever Dan sits down next to him to shuffle closer because that’s the kind of thing they do now. It’s like everything that was okay yesterday is off limits today. Dan doesn’t get to be annoying and needy anymore, because right now it doesn’t make Phil angry in a horny way. It just makes him angry, and held back, acting like Dan simply existing is enough to put him in a bad mood.

It doesn’t take long before Dan really can’t take it anymore. And with Phil, Dan doesn’t do his usual thing of hiding and overthinking and feeling like a mistake. Not anymore. For whatever reason, even now that Phil’s being unreasonably sensitive, Dan gets angry by the second day of it. They were just having fun a moment ago, playing Mario Kart and saying stupid shit just to psych each other out. But then they closed the game, and Dan leaned into Phil, running his hand down to the inside of his thigh and Phil just. Sighed and squirmed like Dan isn’t Dan but just one of those ‘straight’ guys Phil hooks up with.

“What?” Dan asks, intense, not moving from the spot.

Phil looks away, but he stops squirming. He crosses his arms over his chest like a child.

“Tell me to fuck off then,” Dan says, “if I’m that much of an inconvenience to you.”

Phil looks at him. Dan shuffles back to his own side of the sofa. He immediately gets his phone out, staring down at the home screen and pretending like he’s busy with something. The silence is excruciating.

“You’re not,” Phil finally says.

“No?” Dan says. “You’re making me fucking feel like one, dude.”

“Oh, no,” Phil says, mocking but not in a fun way. “Didn’t mean to hurt your precious feelings.”

Dan’s chest goes cold. He’s seen Phil annoyed, angry, unreasonable, teasing. But never like this. Phil’s never actually been _mean_ like this before. Dan stares at him, and Phil’s looking at him, and it feels like something breaks.

“Fuck,” Phil sighs, uncrossing his arms and tightening his lips. “Okay. Dan.”

“Nah, mate,” Dan chuckles. He looks back down at his phone, feeling the cold from his chest bleed down to his stomach. “I’d rather not.”

“No,” Phil says. “Just-”

Phil grabs Dan by the chin and kisses him hard. Dan drops his phone somewhere among the cushions and leans into it. He’s so fucking easy for Phil. He melts under his touch, goes pliant the moment Phil’s rough hands are on him. And tonight, they’re _rough._ They’re not careful. Phil is taking whatever is bothering him out on Dan, who’s missed Phil’s touch enough to not so much as question the strength and angry passion behind every kiss, every touch.

“Yeah,” Dan whimpers when Phil strokes him through his pants.

“This does it for you, yeah?” Phil practically growls. “This what the other guy did to you?”

Dan blinks. Phil’s pulled back, sitting up between Dan’s legs, still stroking him. Dan grabs his wrist.

“What?” Dan asks.

“The guy that fucked you the other night,” Phil says. “Did he treat you like this?”

He squeezes Dan’s dick, grabs him by the throat with his other hand, staring him straight in the eye. He’s not holding on hard, but he’s not letting Dan move an inch. Dan would be a little scared if he wasn’t so fucking into it.

So Dan decides to go with it. “What if he did?”

The conflict, so apparent on Phil’s face, settles into what Dan could only describe as dominance. Dan knows this is kind of fucked up. Phil could tell Dan was with someone else, and for some reason he’s angry about it, and he’s taking it out in this way rather than just talking about it. Dan’s lost count on how many times Phil’s told him to ‘just _ask’_ and ‘talk to him’ when it comes to the other guys whenever Dan’s upset by them. And yet here Phil is, acting just as jealous and irrational as Dan. And Dan is fucking hopeless, pathetic, seeing this possessive side of Phil take over. He... wants to see that. He’s turned on by it. No matter how little sense it makes.

“Did he?” Phil asks. There’s the smallest hurt in his voice.

“Why do you care?” Dan presses. He bucks into Phil’s hand. “Fuck.”

“You were a mess when you got home,” Phil says. “If he did something-”

“He was fine,” Dan cuts him off. He’s blushing like mad. “Nothing bad happened. Christ, Phil.”

Phil deflates slightly. He looks like he’s about to say something, but then he leans in instead. Dan kisses him. He wraps his arms around his back and holds him close, all those cold feelings inside becoming something fluttery and emotional Dan can’t name. He just knows that he likes it.

“You don’t know what you do to me,” Phil mutters, moving to kiss his neck. It’s so quiet Dan’s not sure he was even meant to hear it. “You’re so fucking dumb.”

Okay, Dan knows he was meant to hear that second part, at least. He groans.

“You’re gonna just lie here while I suck you off,” Phil says into Dan’s ear.

“And what if-” Dan tries.

“You’re not gonna say anything,” Phil repeats, stern. “You’re gonna come in my mouth and be happy about it.”

Dan laughs. Phil holds back a smile as he gets Dan’s cock out, leaning down to play with it. He’s just. Keeping a hold of it, teasing with his pointy little tongue, sucking warm horny kisses against the side.

It wasn’t the kind of blow job Dan expected, but fuck, he wants it. He keeps still, grabbing the cushions hard just to level out all this fucking feeling against something. 

Everything gets so quiet, yet intense, as Phil covers Dan’s dick with his mouth and bobs his head slowly. Dan might be more used to Phil now, but he’s still exactly the same guy that Phil made fun of those first times. He’s still fucking desperate for him, stupid for him. Seeing Phil’s lips stretch around his cock as he carefully allows it to slide deeper for every movement is enough to make Dan go absolutely insane.

It usually doesn’t take more than a smirk and a mocking word from Phil to make Dan submit to him, so watching him blow him with this amount of care, like he’s trying his hardest-

Dan grabs Phil by the hair and pulls out, panting. Phil’s mouth is spit-slick, lips fucked red. Dan gasps, scrunching his eyes shut as Phil smirks and takes him back in his mouth. He wanks him with one hand as he suckles tightly around the head. Dan is practically punching and kicking the sofa, willing himself not to fuck Phil’s throat, to stop himself from holding Phil down hard enough to gag around his cock as he comes. And Phil’s actually fucking laughing while sucking him now, wanking him to the edge. 

Dan practically catapults over that edge, or something. He bucks hard into Phil’s fist, his entire body still and stiff as he pumps his load into Phil’s open mouth. Once he’s able to, Dan forces himself to look down at Phil. Phil grins back at him, opening his mouth just enough for Dan to catch sight of his own cum in there before he swallows it down. It’s pornographic. Dan is losing his fucking _mind._

“Bet he didn’t make you feel like that,” Phil says. 

Dan shakes his head, laughing into the crook of his own arm. He should say something like ‘yeah he definitely didn’t’ but he can’t bring himself to. He wants whatever’s unlocked in Phil, now that he thinks he’s got actual competition.

Dan can hear Phil wank his own cock, the wet sound of his spit-slick hand stroking over it as he levels his weight over Dan. It’s stupidly hot, knowing Phil’s getting off just looking at him.

“You didn’t get this riled up watching me suck PJ off,” Dan says once his mind stops spinning. He looks at Phil’s face, the focus in it. Somehow his heart goes soft seeing that.

“Because PJ knows-” Phil stops wanking himself, pausing.

“What?” Dan giggles. He’s nervous again. He can’t stop himself from laughing. “What does PJ know?”

“He knows you’re mine,” Phil finishes. He looks away as soon as the words are out, nuzzling into the crook of Dan’s neck as he fucks his own fist.

Dan wraps his arms around Phil, kisses his sweaty hair. PJ knows… something Dan didn’t even know. Well, he knew. But he didn’t _know._

“So it’s only okay for people to fuck me if they know who I belong to?” Dan asks. It’s meant as a joke, like, ‘look at how ridiculous this sounds’, but Phil nods into his neck.

“Dan,” Phil gasps.

“Shh,” Dan shushes him, for some fucking reason. “I’ve got you.”

Phil comes, biting Dan’s shoulder. Dan still holds him tightly as Phil slumps, body completely relaxed. Come to think of it, Dan’s always the one that gets reassured. Never Phil. And Dan doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he holds Phil and kisses him where he can reach, feeling all those fluttery things.

“I’m yours,” Dan whispers.

Phil hums, letting out a breath. They lie like that for a long time. Holding each other. Not once does Phil ask Dan to say ‘thank you’.

-

_**PJ:** You can’t tell me he doesn’t have it bad for you, though._

_**PJ:** Be careful is all I’m saying_

_**PJ:** But yeah he’s good, he’s so hot. Try to keep him around, idiot. LOL_

The texts Dan definitely didn’t read on Phil’s phone a few weeks back is the only thing he can think about the following day. PJ thinks he’s so smart. Like he’s that intuitive. Like he could possibly know anything about what Dan wants or doesn’t. PJ’s cool, sure. He went back to Brighton shortly after the three of them fooled around together, and though Dan doesn’t miss him, he likes him well enough. But the idea of him thinking he sees something Dan hasn’t intentionally shown anyone? Dan only really likes that when Phil does it.

Dan didn’t really think much of those texts at first, after PJ left. He and Phil were good, anyway. They got closer in a new way, forming more of a friendship, and Dan would lie if he said he doesn’t prefer having Phil to himself. Including other people is fun and all. Dan doesn’t want to stop doing that, necessarily. It’s just that Phil keeps saying stuff. From the very start, he’s been telling Dan he’s too young and stupid to ‘get it’, whatever ‘it’ is. 

Maybe Phil’s right. Dan can be pretty stupid. If he were smarter, maybe some part of him would have at least suspected how Phil would react to Dan randomly having sex with another person. But Dan seriously didn’t, and he’s not lying to himself about that.

Now that he’s thinking about PJ’s texts, he does so from a new perspective. If he forgets how wrapped up he is in it all personally, they’re painfully obvious and not at all subtle. Paired with Phil’s jealousy, there’s no doubt Phil must be feeling something. And that’s fucking scary. But then, Phil isn’t making Dan deal with it too much. Only this once. Dan can deal with ‘once’, he thinks.

Dan kind of moves into Phil’s room. They don’t do a lot of scenes or anything. They’re both busy with school and the times they share at home at the flat when they’re not studying is mostly dedicated to cuddling and watching anime. It’s kind of domestic. Dan doesn’t even care as much as he usually would when word gets around about him sleeping with Josh at the party, or all the labels people could put on him because of it. It doesn’t really faze him, because at the end of the day he’s got someone waiting for him at home. Someone that doesn’t care to label him, or their relationship, or what they get up to.

Dan likes that. He hates talking about shit, even if it gets confusing at times. The following week is bliss, truly. It’s one part of his life where he just gets to be a person, rather than scramble for excuses that sound vaguely like something that’d describe himself. He doesn’t fucking want to use words for who he is. And Phil doesn’t either, because he somehow gets that.

It’s strange but amazing to feel so utterly understood and comforted by another person’s perception of him. To be allowed to be a blank slate, but not one Phil would try to paint. He’s seemingly waiting for Dan to paint his own picture, or something. But Dan thinks Phil would be fine if nothing showed up on that slate in the end, too. Like some weird modern art piece that would try to explain the nature of human existence. Honestly, if anything, Dan relates to that more than anything. And Phil just… gets it.

-

Maybe that’s why it hurts as much as it does, when Dan comes home after a weekend visiting his grandmother. He’s sore from playing the part of a good son, a good grandson, but he wasn’t gone long enough to not still feel excited about seeing Phil, and getting to be as perfectly non-essential and undefined as he pleases.

Right when Dan opens the door to their flat that Sunday evening, he wishes he’d never felt excited in the first place. Because Dan walks in on Phil coming down someone’s throat on the same couch they were on when Phil told Dan that he belonged to him only a week ago. Dan loudly takes off his shoes and tosses the jacket on the floor, not bothering to hide that he’s noticed or that he’s upset. He won’t say anything. He’ll go to his room and let Phil feel like hot shit for a second.

At least, that’s what Dan thinks until there’s movement from the couch and he notices that it’s Liam. Liam, with his lithe body and perfectly boy-ish blonde surfer ‘do, sitting up and wiping his mouth with his hand as he swallows Phil’s cum down.

It’s like something in Dan changes right at that moment. Phil turns to him, and Dan can’t find even the tiniest evidence of guilt or surprise on his face. If there was, if Phil had done this behind his back, Dan might’ve felt differently. Because that would’ve at least shown that Phil cared about his feelings enough for that.

_”Didn’t mean to hurt your precious feelings.”_

The words Phil said last weekend echo in Dan’s head. Phil truly doesn’t give a fuck about Dan’s ‘precious feelings’, does he?

“Get out,” Dan says, watching the guys scramble to get dressed as Dan walks into the lounge without shame. “Get the _fuck out!”_

Finally, Phil reacts. But as usual, he doesn’t react like Dan expects him to. There’s only confusion evident on his face and in his body language.

Phil’s got his soft shorts and t-shirt back on already while Liam still struggles with his jeans. For a jock, he’s not very impressive at getting his hand-eye coordination right in a high pressure scenario. Dan almost laughs at the thought, but all he can bring himself to do is let out a frustrated noise as he turns around, staring out the smudged window. He can’t bear to look at the visible parts of Liam’s skin, can’t bear to notice and memorise the evidence of Phil on him.

“You told me you weren’t-” Dan hears Liam whisper behind him, as if he wouldn’t be able to hear him. His throat is pounding with adrenaline. He could hear a conversation from the first floor if he focused hard enough on it, right now.

“Just go,” Phil hisses back. “I’ll handle it.”

Dan snaps around at that. He wants to cry. He wants to _punch_ Phil.

“Handle what?” Dan asks, voice raised. He doesn’t sound nearly as intimidating as he wants to. He sounds just as hurt as he feels. “I don’t want you to stay here, either.”

Phil frowns. Liam pauses, finally dressed enough to run for the hallway because at least one of them understands how to act when Dan wants to set the world on fire.

“Dan,” Phil says. He sounds so fucking calm.

“No, Phil,” Dan says, mockingly matching his serene tone. “You don’t get to act like you’re so fucking good and reasonable right now. Like I’m the one that’s got some fucking issue that I don’t understand myself just because I’m what? Four years younger than you? Get the fuck over yourself.”

“You can’t throw me out,” Phil says. Dan catches some hurt in his eyes. For once, that makes him happy. “I’m not going.”

“Fine,” Dan shrugs. “Fucking fine.”

He stomps off to his room. He hears Phil lock the front door once Liam’s left, as he buries himself under his own covers in an attempt to shut the whole fucking world out.

After that, the flat goes weirdly quiet. Dan’s brain goes just as quiet. He wants to be upset. He wants to feel as justified as he did just a minute ago, throwing Liam out and yelling at Phil. Instead, he feels nothing. All the excitement he’d drummed up on his way home, imagining asking to fuck Phil and Phil making fun of him for it but spreading his legs willingly, is now gone. That small little hook Dan had hinged some kind of hope on fell right off the wall and brought everything down to crumble with it.

Dan doesn’t cry. He doesn’t care about going to see what Phil’s up to, or if he’s okay. Instead, the little jabs he got from his family at home, the weirdness of meeting his freshly divorced mum and the energy she now exudes that Dan never got to see growing up, it all gets to him now. He held strong because he knew he had something to look forward to. He had a person to see, one that doesn’t bother to fit him into a mold that makes sense. And without that person, all Dan can see is who he is in the eyes of his family. A confused little boy with no sense of direction, whose anger flares at inappropriate moments just like the person in his family they’re all in the process of distancing themselves from.

Isn’t this a classic? Dan ignored the warning signs because Phil was still making him feel good, and seen, and important. Maybe Phil isn’t different, after all. Maybe Dan just looked at him behind rose tinted glasses, picking out the parts of him that he needed and attaching his own heart to them, only for it to be crushed when none of it turned out to be real.

Dan should be smarter than this, but then, Phil did always call him stupid. He knew what Dan was getting them both into all along. He warned him. And that hurts a fuck lot more, the fact that in the end Dan has no one to truly blame but himself. Dan should’ve just listened to himself that first time Phil started putting the moves on him. To not put his place in this flat at risk, because that’s all they are in the end; university flatmates. That person that’ll be part of Dan’s stories from university for the rest of his life but who shouldn’t hold any greater purpose to him than that. Just a dude, encapsulated in this era of his life, nothing more and nothing less.

Except--not really. Phil was always more.

PJ warned Phil about fucking this all up. Phil was more upset than Dan’s ever seen him when he’d been with another person without telling Phil, or without that person knowing Dan ‘belongs’ to him. Dan shouldn’t have thought that meant something. Maybe all it meant is that Dan should’ve kept Phil at an arm’s length, just like PJ seems to do. Because yeah, it’s nice to feel like he belongs to Phil. But at the end of the day, no part of Phil belongs to Dan. Like he’s some exception to the rule, free to do what he pleases regardless of who gets hurt along the way.

-

Phil comes to Dan’s bed after a while. He cuddles up behind him, getting his arms around Dan under the duvet, quiet and still. Dan’s on edge. He’s never felt this wrong being touched by Phil before.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dan asks.

Phil kisses the top of Dan’s head, running his hand up and down his chest in a soothing motion. Dan almost thinks he hears a catch in Phil’s breath; like an actual emotion is making itself known somewhere behind him. But that’s the thing with Phil. He only seems to feel anything when he thinks he’s about to lose Dan.

“I don’t get it,” Phil whispers.

That wasn’t what Dan expected to hear. He frowns, turning around to look at Phil’s face. Phil looks genuine. Like, genuinely confused. Dan almost laughs in his face. What the fuck does _Phil_ have to be confused about?

“Don’t look at me like that,” Phil groans.

“What?” Dan says. “You get off on me hating you, too?”

It’s out before Dan can stop himself. Phil’s jaw clenches. 

“No,” Dan sighs. “I don’t _hate_ you. I didn’t mean that.”

“Since when do you scream at me for hooking up with someone, Dan?” Phil asks.

“I didn’t scream at you,” Dan immediately defends himself.

Phil quirks an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed.

“Whatever,” Dan huffs, sitting up and crossing his arms over his chest. Phil sits up with him. “What don’t you get? I thought I was the stupid one.”

“Liam knows he means nothing to me,” Phil says, as if that’s normal and makes perfect sense.

“Well, same,” Dan manages to say through gritted teeth. “Guess that’s one thing he and I have in common, then.”

“What?” Phil says. “No.”

He wraps an arm around Dan’s shoulder. Dan should try to get away. He really fucking should.

“You know you mean more to me than any of those guys,” Phil whispers. “Right?”

Dan shakes his head. “How the fuck could I know anything like that? What are you on about?”

“It’s just a feeling,” Phil says. He doesn’t sound like he’s putting on that big-brother-flatmate role he usually puts on when he’s explaining something to Dan, though. He just sounds like he really thought all of this was obvious to everyone involved. “Like.”

Phil sighs, giving up. Dan looks back at him, by effect making Phil hold on to him tighter. Dan’s stomach flutters insanely once they look into each other’s eyes, bringing up all the emotions Dan thought he’d buried the moment he found Liam on their couch.

“I know you don’t want to do that, though,” Phil says. “You don’t want to be with me.”

“What?” Dan says. His heart is pounding now.

“You already look terrified,” Phil says. “Try to tell me you’re not scared right now.”

Dan groans, looking away. Phil’s right. 

“I just thought that it counted for you, too,” Dan mumbles. “If I have to tell people I belong to someone before I fuck them, you should too.”

“I did,” Phil says, and now he sounds like his usual self. Like Dan’s so behind and doesn’t understand anything. “Liam knows that.”

Dan stares back at him. “You said that? In those words? You told him you _belong_ to me?”

“You fucking told him yourself when you got pissed at him that other time,” Phil laughs. “Even PJ knew, bro.”

Dan splutters incoherently, trying to get all of this to fit into the narrative he’d been leading this whole time.

“I’m not gonna say anything more about it right now,” Phil says. “Just, please don’t be angry or think I don’t care.”

“Yeah,” Dan mumbles, despite himself. Phil kisses him on the cheek before he gets up from Dan’s bed.

“Come to my bed later,” Phil says.

Dan looks at him. He swallows hard, feeling his whole body respond to the tone of Phil’s voice now. All he does is nod, the smallest motion, and then Phil leaves.

-

It only takes a little while before Dan finds himself outside Phil’s closed bedroom door. He’s unpacked his bags from his trip home, showered, and had something to eat. He tried not to obsess over every word Phil had said earlier while he did. 

But now, now that Dan’s on the brink of going back into the confusing mess that Phil’s got for him, all of that disappears. Because in a sense, Phil’s never really wavered. He hasn’t done anything surprising. He’s treated Dan the same way this whole time, and Dan knows exactly what to expect from entering Phil’s bedroom now. He knows he’ll get what he wants; affection and pleasure and dominance, beautifully undefined just like Dan’s wanted it this whole time.

It’s just not what he’s supposed to want, is it? He’s supposed to want something that’s more secure and communicative. But Dan’s not ready for that. Had he gotten involved with anyone but Phil in this time of his life, _Dan_ would be the one hurting someone’s feelings by not committing enough. Everything Phil said makes perfect sense. Dan’s just baffled that he could find someone that gets him like that, because Dan can’t even understand himself.

Dan can feel that Phil’s mood has changed the moment he steps inside the room. Phil’s lounging in the middle of his bed, playing on his phone when Dan enters. He’s only wearing a pair of tight, black boxer briefs. Dan’s mind flashes back to the times when Phil would walk around the flat only wearing that, leaving Dan so desperately horny he had to go touch himself in the shower, trying to pretend like Phil couldn’t tell or how much he got off on that fact alone.

It’s like the world’s put on pause for a second, while Dan stands by the edge of the bed admiring Phil’s body. He feels himself slip into sub space bit by bit, knowing he’s getting deliberately ignored. Phil’s hard, his cock thick and filled, bulging against the fabric of his underwear. Dan’s mind spins. Phil has him right here, up for the taking, and yet he waits to ask Dan for anything.

Eventually, Phil puts his phone away. Neatly placing it on his bedside table before he so much as glances at Dan, but once he does he doesn’t look away. Dan feels himself flush all over, being eyed from head to toe by dark, suggestive eyes. It’s embarrassing, but Dan squirms on the spot, shifting his weight between his feet because he’s hard as a rock and desperate for any type of friction.

“Done with your dramatic little moment, are we?” Phil asks, looking into Dan’s eyes.

Dan swallows, heart beating harder. “Uh-”

“Surprised you’re still dressed, to be honest,” Phil goes on, ignoring Dan’s apprehension. “Figured you were feeling needy enough to not bother putting anything on after your shower.”

“Well, you didn’t tell me to come in undressed,” Dan reasons. He catches himself, smiling as he blushes, watching Phil’s eyebrows quirk just slightly but enough that Dan can tell he said the right thing.

Dan plays with the hem of his t-shirt between his fingers, popping his hip out deliberately and tilting his head to the side. “Did you want me to take this off?”

Phil sits up on his knees. He’s flushing a pretty pink, watching the sliver of skin revealed when Dan pushes his shirt up the tiniest bit. 

“You’re awfully bold,” Phil muses, but his voice isn’t that commanding. He seems entirely distracted by Dan’s little show. “Take it off.”

Dan pulls the t-shirt over his head and drops it on the floor unceremoniously. He could try to look sexy, but something about Phil finding him hot no matter how careless he acts right now is even better.

“Bottoms, too,” Phil whispers, eyes locking to Dan’s tummy.

Dan stops himself from covering up or angling himself away to look more attractive. He doesn’t look athletic in the slightest, which used to be a source of insecurity for him, but Phil’s so obsessed with his body he can’t feel proper weird about it now. The thought is still in the back of Dan’s mind. It’s made a home there for itself after years of Dan’s own disapproving thoughts about his body, but it doesn’t manage to get to him when he’s getting eye fucked by his hot flatmate.

Dan pulls his pyjama bottoms down and off, leaving him completely exposed to Phil’s wandering gaze. The light in the room is dimmed, but this is easily the most Dan’s revealed himself to Phil physically. There’s nothing to obscure Phil’s view of him now, and he still looks so fucking hungry for it. Dan lets out a hard breath as his palms slide down his own stomach, bypassing his own dick even though that’s where he desperately needs to be touched. 

“So fucking pretty,” Phil says. For a second, he’s not being dominant. He just says it so genuinely Dan might cry.

Phil scoots forward on his knees and takes a hold of Dan’s hips. Dan’s cockhead brushes against Phil’s chest, making Dan whimper. 

“Kiss me,” Phil says. Dan leans down, taking a hold of the back of Phil’s head and feeling the tension from before wash away. “Good boy,” Phil sighs between kisses, running his hands up and down Dan’s sides.

Dan actually whines at that. He’s well past ready to submit, desperate for every little crumb of validation Phil’s got for him. Dan doesn’t even mind calling it that, right now.

They keep kissing, only pausing when Phil pulls Dan onto the bed. Dan ends up beneath him, arms wrapped around his waist as Phil goes deliberately heavy on top of him. Dan’s heart is beating hard, stomach riddled with nerves, because even though he loves this slow start it’s not enough. Dan grinds up against Phil’s dick and tugs at the hem of his underwear.

Phil pushes into it when Dan’s hands slide down to squeeze his ass, but he still pulls away to give him a playful slap on the shoulder.

“Naughty,” Phil says breathlessly, still rolling his hips back into Dan’s big palms.

Dan’s absolutely fuzzy now, just from that little slap. That spot on his shoulder is positively tingling, like an itch begging to be scratched.

“Please,” Dan begs. He’s loud in comparison to Phil.

Phil grabs him by the throat, just like he did last week. It’s a stronger hold this time, fingers digging in just enough to hurt but gentle enough not to prod at his nerves. Dan feels all that energy and desperation centre into the hold around his neck, into the pleased look on Phil’s face. Dan’s hands go slack, slipping out of Phil’s underwear to flop uselessly against the bed.

“Fuck, you’re that needy for it,” Phil murmurs sweetly, giving Dan a chaste kiss on the lips. His hand moves from his neck up towards his face, gentle but strong as he pushes him down. Dan’s eyes flutter shut as he gasps, bucking his hips thoughtlessly to brush his dick against Phil’s stomach.

“Yes,” Dan whimpers. He pauses for a second as Phil slips away out of reach, but he keeps his eyes closed because the telltale sounds of Phil taking his underwear off and uncapping a bottle of lube soothes him. “Use me.”

Before Dan has time to consider the surprisingly deep groan those words elicit from Phil, his cock is covered by Phil’s lube-slick hand. The room smells like warmth and fruit scented lubrication. Dan feels himself get desperate again, wanting to fuck Phil’s hand until he comes, but Phil as always anticipates Dan’s changing moods. He’s got Dan’s throat back in his hold. His palm is sticky with lube, too, and something about that is so filthy. 

“Immature little thing,” Phil says, voice dripping with ridicule. “Doesn’t even know how to share, hm?”

Dan’s eyes flutter open to Phil smiling at him. But there’s the teasing in his eyes, as he slowly wanks Dan’s wet cock, gripping his throat harder. A slight movement of Phil’s head asks ‘are you okay?’, and Dan nods in response.

“More,” he nearly sobs, starting to squirm against the mattress. “Phil. _Please.”_

Phil slaps him on the chest, harder than before but still not hard enough. “Like that?” he asks.

Dan swallows, body aching for more of the slight, controlled pain Phil could give to him. “Please.”

Phil twists one of his nipples, making Dan back arch up as the sensation spreads through his body in this odd pleasure that stops his breathing for a second. Phil leans down to suck at the other one, so sweet and gentle. Dan has to look. Phil laughs at the surprise on Dan’s face as he meets his eye.

“Love these little tits,” Phil says, giving the hard nub a faint little lick. “You like it when I call them that, too, yeah?”

It’s a check-in, but it’s said like a tease. Dan’s heart pounds as his mind reaches out from the space where all of this is okay because he just wants Phil to use him. It brushes against something inside of him that’s real, and scary, and-

Phil lets go of Dan’s dick and straddles his stomach, covering Dan’s chest by his lubed up hands. He squeezes hard and leans down to bite Dan’s neck. It’s so unexpected, so fucking hot, Dan slips back under with a soft moan as he pushes into every touch.

“What a good little sub you are,” Phil praises him. “Can’t wait for you to fuck me.”

Dan grabs Phil’s ass again. When he feels between the cheeks, though, there’s something hard and round blocking his hole. Dan’s sunk so deep that it confuses him for a moment, and without thinking he pushes his fingers against the flat surface. Phil’s muscles jump as his hips buck forward with a whorish moan. Dan pulls his hand away, finally realising that Phil’s wearing a fucking buttplug because he wanted Dan to fuck him that bad. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Dan chants, squeezing the base of his throbbing cock.

“Stupid boy,” Phil laughs, slapping Dan on the cheek. “You’re not gonna cream my ass the second I let you inside it, are you?”

Dan squeezes his cock harder, willing the swooping sensation of an approaching orgasm to die down. Phil looks so fucking happy with himself, reducing Dan to this. Humiliating him in this way.

“Answer me,” Phil says, voice sharp and beckoning enough to Dan to finally snap out of it.

“No, Master,” Dan says.

It’s as if the title had been hiding somewhere in his mind and just waiting to trick him to say it without thinking. Dan’s mouth snaps shut, face burning red.

“Master, huh?” Phil asks. He’s not laughing anymore. “I don’t hate that.”

Phil kisses him. Dan’s heart flutters, and flutters, and flutters with boundless affection as he slides his tongue against Phil’s in a hot kiss.

“I won’t come until you ask me to,” Dan says. “I’ll fuck you as long as you need it, Master. I promise.”

Phil groans. Dan’s heart hammers against his chest.

“Please,” Dan says, going for a sultry tone but probably sounding kind of ridiculous. “I _need_ it.”

It turns him on to talk like that, somehow. And it seems to turn Phil on, too, because Phil reaches between his cheeks and pulls the plug out like it’s the most casual thing he’s ever done in response to Dan’s tone. Dan whines, knowing what’s to come when Phil puts the plug in his drawer. He straddles Dan’s hips, smearing more lube on his fingers to fuck his own ass for a few strokes. Dan watches Phil work his hips against his own hand. It’s such a practiced, horny, shameless thing to witness. Phil moans, not even for show. He’s just pleasuring himself in front of Dan, like he forgot that he was just meant to make his hole wet and easy for Dan to slide into. 

Dan’s too stunned to even say anything, but then Phil pulls his fingers out and grabs Dan’s lubed up cock. He grins at Dan, face flushed and excited and _dominant._

“You’re gonna ride me?” is the only thing Dan’s one-track brain can think to ask.

Phil loses focus for a second, just running the head of Dan’s cock over the crack. Dan holds his breath and flexes his toes, trying to calm the fuck down.

“Yeah, I’m gonna ride you, idiot,” Phil grins, sounding so affectionate about it he might as well have just told Dan he loves him.

Phil sinks down. It goes so smoothly, Dan’s balls deep within seconds, like sliding into a juicy, tight pussy. Phil looks barely fazed by it, too. The combination of Phil clenching around all of him this way, while smiling like he’s barely even affected by something that could make Dan come if he allowed himself to--It’s the filthiest, loveliest thing Dan’s ever felt.

“You feel fucking good,” Phil groans, rocking his hips a little.

Dan’s too focused on trying to get used to the sensations that he’s entirely unprepared when Phil bends over him, grabbing his wrists to pin them down by the sides of his head. His dick slides right out, making both of them groan. Dan fucks up against Phil’s hole uselessly. Well, that’s what he thinks until the head somehow catches at Phil’s gaping rim and slides right in.

“Fuck,” Dan moans, hips stuttering, before he slams deep inside.

Phil’s voice hasn’t ever gone this high when they’ve been together before. He’s moaning like a slut, grinding back down against Dan’s cock like he’s desperate for it.

“Fuck yes,” Phil whines, somehow managing to sound absolutely dominant at the same time. “Fuck me like that. God, yes.”

“Master,” Dan splutters.

Phil’s hands tighten around Dan’s wrists as he looks down at his face with hooded eyes. “Fuck that little hole, baby,” he whispers.

Dan rocks his hips with him, hard and unrelenting. Phil’s cock is thick and leaking between their stomachs. They’re moaning helplessly together.

“Harder,” Phil urges him, bringing Dan’s wrists to lock around his neck. _”Oh.”_

“You filthy slut,” Dan whooshes out on a breath. “You’re gonna kill me.”

Phil grabs Dan’s jaw hard at that. Dan’s still fucking him, can’t stop. His body’s on fire.

“Don’t for a second think,” Phil pants, pressing his fingers into Dan’s skin so hard it hurts, “you’re in control. You fucking bitch.”

Dan’s brain is melting out of his ears, probably, at this point. He nods as well as he can against Phil’s tight hold.

“No, Master,” he agrees desperately. “Never. Mmmmh.”

Phil slips two fingers between Dan’s lips. Dan sucks hard, fucks hard, bobbing his head like there’s an actual fucking cock in his mouth.

“Good boy,” Phil moans. “Just like that. Fuck me like that.”

Dan whimpers. He can’t stop himself from coming. Phil is so tight and yet so easy to fuck into. The headboard slams against the wall with every stroke. The whole building must hear them fucking right now, and Dan--Dan fucking hopes that’s true. He forgets everything as he shoots his load deep in Phil’s horny, wet hole, jaw going slack around the fingers in his mouth.

“You came,” Phil says, stilling his hips, sitting snug on Dan’s twitching, cumming, pathetic little dick.

Dan finally lets out a big breath as it rides through his entire body, making him see stars. Phil kisses him faintly, then slaps him in the face with the same hand Dan had been giving the best blow job of his life to seconds ago.

Dan doesn’t even feel bad. He lets out an almost childish laugh as Phil finally lets him slide out of him.

“I didn’t mean to,” Dan breathes, sweating. “I’m sorry, Master-”

“No, you’re fucking not,” Phil growls. “You horny fucking liar.”

Phil almost sounds genuinely upset, then. Dan blinks, shuddering with a tight breath. Phil is staring at him with disapproval, but--It’s a sexy kind of disapproval.

“You’re gonna suck your own cum out of my ass,” Phil whispers, breath hot and cock hard as it slides against Dan’s stomach. “Then you’ll let me fuck your face until you’re _really_ sorry.”

And Dan, stupidly fucking horny and happy still, can only smile as he responds. “Please.”

Dan genuinely tries, once Phil’s situated on his back with his legs spread, Dan’s mouth desperately fitted around his gaping asshole. He slides his tongue deep, thick, wet inside, sucking as he pulls it out, but he only gets faint little tastes of his own cum in there.

“It’s too deep,” Dan says, looking up at Phil who looks like he’s halfway to heaven being rimmed like this, digging his heels into the mattress. “I can’t get it out.”

“I don’t fucking care,” Phil groans, spreading his legs wider, pushing Dan’s face down to his ass again. Dan can’t help but giggle as he slides his tongue back inside, listening to Phil’s helpless little moans.

 _“Dan,”_ Phil gasps, pushing Dan’s face away. 

He gets a hand around his own dick and pushes it between Dan’s lips. He fucks it shallowly for a few strokes before he pulls back out with a desperate noise. Dan doesn’t need to be told before he spits on his own fingers to push them inside Phil. Three of them, long and thick, fucking Phil at a hammering pace. Phil’s hips buck hard as he clenches. His hand falls away from Dan’s head but Dan takes the cock back inside his mouth, staying still as he lets Phil fuck into his mouth and back on his fingers, whining louder than Dan’s ever heard him.

It takes only a couple minutes before Phil comes. Dan gags as it shoots right down his throat, his eyes red and leaking, muscles sore from overexertion. Phil breathes hard, dick sliding out. An excessive amount of spit hangs off it as it slaps against his own stomach.

“I’m sorry, Master,” Dan says, throat scratchy.

Phil looks down at him, confused like he forgot what Dan’s got to be sorry about. Then he laughs.

“Shit,” he says. “Wait here a second. You’re a mess.”

He’s about to leave, but then he pauses his movement, never taking his eyes off of Dan. Dan feels exposed, dirty and _messy_ as Phil put it. Phil reaches out, squeezing Dan’s shoulder gently.

“You did good,” he murmurs, his smile changing from teasing to tender. Dan’s so snug and comfortable, floating through the comfortable mindstate Phil keeps him so safe inside. “You took the punishment so well.”

“Thank you, Master,” Dan says, weak. Phil plays with a curl that’s fallen over his forehead, eyes full of something new.

“I-,” Phil says, then closes his mouth on a smile as he pulls away, blushing. “We’re good, yeah?”

He means everything from before. Liam. Dan nods. Nothing can really get to him right now.

“Do you want me to stop seeing Liam?” Phil asks. “Or people in general?”

Maybe Phil is bringing it up right now because they’re both in a good mood. Maybe he’s bringing it up because Dan is still submitting to him, meaning he’ll respond honestly to his questions. Dan doesn’t like telling people what to do. He doesn’t like to ask things of others if it’s just for his own comfort. But he forces himself to.

“I only want you to stop seeing Liam,” Dan says. It’s true. Liam’s the only person Phil’s brought home that actually makes Dan proper mad.

“Okay, I can do that,” Phil says. His expression hasn’t changed. He’s that willing to change something just for Dan’s sake, and that is---Dan isn’t going to think about it. “Wait here, yeah? I’ll get us something to clean up.”

Phil reaches out to pet Dan’s cheek, the same one he slapped countless times while they were fucking. “Good boy.”

Dan feels himself smile stupidly. Phil grins, finally getting out of bed and skipping out the room with an impressive amount of bounce to his step for someone that just got fucked like that. Dan tries to swallow around the scratchiness in his throat only to end up coughing pathetically. He doesn’t feel anything but good, though. He feels fucking ecstatic. His brain is empty except for the happy little chemicals floating around, making him giggle for no reason.

Phil returns with a warm, wet towel and two big glasses of water. Dan wipes his own face and chest, accepting the glass as Phil hands it to him. Dan watches him clean himself up. It feels so natural once Phil slides back into bed with him after they’ve both finished their water. Their arms slot around one another as Phil pulls the duvet up over the two of them.

They lie close together, breathing in the aftermath.

“Too much?” Phil whispers, stroking Dan’s back.

Dan nuzzles his face into Phil’s neck, shaking his head. “Perfect,” he mumbles.

Phil takes a gentle hold of Dan’s chin, sliding his hand over his mouth with a smirk as he looks into his eyes.

“What do we say?” he asks.

Dan kisses Phil’s palm, eyes falling shut, so relaxed he’s beginning to feel sleepy. “Thank you.”

Phil hums a happy noise. Dan buries his face in the crook of his neck, letting himself fall asleep to the soothing sensation of Phil petting his head. Right before he dozes off, though, Dan thinks he hears Phil mumble a ‘thank you, too’ in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! | [tumblr post](https://intoapuddle.tumblr.com/post/639789260103401472/flatmates-part-iv)


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